Not Playing to the Cheap Seats
The What, Why, How, and For Whom We Express Our Perspective
There’s an anecdote I tell too often about sharing an essay I wrote with a friend/writer for constructive criticism. The essay was about my family. About manslaughter and unconscious racism. He asked me why I wrote the piece. Was it to show—and receive verification—that I was better than them? I felt shame.
I still have trouble writing directly about my family because of this. Many writers tell me to just write and not think about it. I think it would be fine if I wanted to tell the story to be seen, to find a kind of affirmation of my “goodness” in all the ugliness. There’s nothing wrong with that. Writing is therapeutic, and can create a kind of community1. And I believe we, as readers, can see ourselves in other people’s sticky beginnings and their extrication and flight. An honest writer can show us what’s beyond the binary of good/bad in themselves, and in the world.
But that’s not what I need to do now as a writer. Nor is it what I want to do. The stories that I’ve pieced together from snapshots of memory—and the literal polaroid images—aren’t about me. I don’t want to tell my story; I want to tell theirs.
Or ours, from other perspectives.
I have hand-me-down facts from the women who came before me. I’m not sure if the sum of the material I’m working with is closer to legend, or to an archeological reconstruction. Like how the sparse dinosaur bones in the museum are scattered in the white plaster. Like all poetry, I hold that what I write is true, if not accurate documentation.
It is a leap of faith to trust that I will step out of the way of my own story, which is a bigger story, which doesn’t have a protagonist.
I’m toying with the idea of structuring the collection by giving each woman her wasp counterpart. One story at a time. Each in her own cell and only occasionally coming out to bash one another in the head with their antennae. I’m not sure that there’s a way to avoid the bashings. It is our nature.
In England now there is a concern that the Asian hornet, an invasive species, will cause irreversible damage to the UK’s ecosystem. A single nest can consume up to 15 kilos of insects a year: bumble bees, honey bees, indigenous wasps. Researchers believe a single queen arrived first in the West in 2004, in France. She was concealed in a shipment of Chinese pottery.2 Her descendants have spread to 15 countries. For the time being, they haven’t established themselves in Norway. It is too cold here. For now. Scientists are watching, ready to eradicate nests.
Asian hornets’ nests are shaped like teardrops. This is an image stuck in my head.
Above I wrote that the queen was concealed in a shipment. It’s something else entirely for me to say she was trapped in a shipment—which is far more likely.
I think it’s a tragic story, this queen who is taken so far from her home, who rears offspring, then offspring follow offspring so successfully, behaving as they always have, only to be hunted to extinction by the humans who brought the queen here.
I want to find it in myself to look at these creatures and genuinely love them without ignoring any aspect of their behavior. “I love you in spite of your nature.” How could that be possible? The cuckoo wasp does what she does. There’s no complex thoughts or intention of causing harm.
Hornets are hard to love. I know that. But maybe it puts things in perspective to talk about a more favored animal: I had a cat once. In the spring she would bring mice up from the basement and drop them on my bed at night. They’d jump off and run down the hall, where she’d catch them and bring them back to start again. She’d do this until they died. Then she’d go upstairs to sleep near my mother. I would need to get up and grab an empty tomato can to scoop up the little corpses. I’d set them on the porch. Usually the dogs would eat them by the time I left for school the next morning.
It took me a long time to forgive that cat for being a cat. At least the dogs didn’t let a death go to waste.
This week my students had their production exams. Just before they began we talked about knowing the whys behind their choices:
What do you want to say to the audience?
We want them think about climate change.
Why?
Because we want to inspire them to do something about it.
Why?
Because they are high school students who don’t think about the future and we need to make them see that it’s an urgent problem.
Now you can ask: “How?”
I know that an academic approach to creative work feels artificial for many writers. I try to find a way to balance the structure with the free-flowing work. One of the things I like about poetry is the structure. And one of the things I dislike about postmodernism is the idea that the reader or audience can decide for themselves what the work means.
I write with intention. If nothing else, I want to avoid ever wallowing in my own drama again. I don’t want to use my story to appeal to pathos. It’s not something I condemn, but it isn’t what I want to do. I also know that appealing to pathos gets a larger readership that I get. I’m okay with that. But I want to communicate specific ideas. I want to know my whys—all the way down to the truth.
Why?
Because people pretend that they don’t see our true nature.
Why?
Because there is no good and evil. There is nature and we need to love it.
Why?
Because nature sustains us. Every aspect of it.
Thank you for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject—please consider sharing them in the comments on Substack. You’re welcome to link to your own relevant post.
I’ll be back later this week with a new poem.
Warmly,
Ren
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A shout out to Laura Davis: https://substack.com/@laurasaridavis . Her book The Courage to Heal was very important to me when I was in my early twenties and writing to make sense of my past.
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/wildlife-biodiversity/asian-hornet-invasion-threatens-uk-pollinators-as-sightings-surge
Another one, a rich and juicy one I will read again and again until it all soaks in.
The last three questions had me thinking of the Stoics. Another fantastic post Ren — a journey as always.