Infinite Images In an Instant

Creative Forums Creative Writing
1

His world is a box in the center of boxes.

A box

In a box

In a box

In a box.

The dot of his existence as the core of nine pieces.

Each at

North-West North North-East

West East

South-West South and South-East.

Immediate east simply a sound,

Next west nothing more than a hair’s width.

And just when the amount of threaded boxes numbers at the infinite,

Creating a blanket of solid color

Changing shade from side to side,

The seers loosens his grasp of the stillness,

As he blinks his eye

And loses it.

2

Sounds very much like transcendental meditation. Being the nothing in the void and losing the ego in order to join the whole of existence.

The concept is cool, but the delivery left me wanting a bit. It reminds me of something I’ve heard many writers say in the past. “Show not Tell”… It seems like you’re trying to force your image as opposed to describing it in an appealing…inviting manner. Think more about being specific, but about the peripherals and not the actual subject of the piece. Sorta like, instead of describing a car, you describe some aspects of the car and let the reader do the rest.

You could say, “Red convertable sportscar” or you can try to describe it through solid images that evoke emotional responses. “The charcoal ragtop slides back as tendrils of current seap in over the windshield whipping my hair back. Freedom reflects in the sunlight flashing off ruby enamel housing the purring soul of this muscular beast. Chrome pedals jerk, the clutch pops, supple italian leather caresses my fingers as I shift up and tune out.”

Now, “housing” and “purring” didn’t sound all that great together (don’t even think it’s spelled right), but the point is, I never said “Red convertable sportscar” anywhere in there… but, I did give enough specific imagery to make it painfully obvious what it was.

The use of phrases like “His world is a box in a center of boxes” to start the poem hinders it a bit because it sets up all the other continual uses of “box” as redundancies to the point that it starts reading more like a manual of some kind.

This is further validated by, “The dot of his existence as the core of nine pieces” and then explaining each with:

“North-West North North-East
West East
South-West South and South-East.”

I felt sorta like this poem was beating me into submission at this point. And, commas would be nice too :wink:

Then lines like:

“Creating a blanket of solid color” and “Changing shade from side to side” are a bit frustrating because the imagery is way too vague. Be specific, what colors do you see? What shades?

I would’ve liked something like," Hues of Oak, tantalizing crimson rose petals and deep blue seas swirl into a solid mesh. The tapestry of color undulating like rapidly changing frequencies (or even ebbing and flowing through the spectrum if you wanted to hold onto the last image of blue seas)"

Or many other ways… I just took 2 minutes with it, so I’m sure mine’s not all that great either, but it’s an attempt in the right direction :slight_smile:

Anyway, like I said, I like the concept and think that this poem has much potential. Just try to go deeper in a sense. Don’t talk about the boxes per se, but maybe something more that the boxes represent. Also, it might benefit from personalizing the piece a bit. “As he blinks his eyes” demonstrates 3rd person, so try to focus on the experience more through this character’s eyes, or through the characters emotions (or lack there of) in order to strike a bond with the readers emotions (or lack there of).

Hope that was helpful.(If not, feel free to ignore in its entirety)

3

Thanks for the suggestions!

Yes, I’m very familiar with the concept of show, not tell (but you know this rule is supposed to mostly apply to emotions; it’s overused and often applied to situations that don’t exactly warrant its suggestion).

And the way I wrote the directions, without the use of commas, was meant to show a picture, while also creating a certain kind of sound as you read it without pausing (if there were commas).

The image would be 9 squares as one square. Three on top of another. The dot of existence in the middle, with very similar, only slightly altered realities, on the 8 boxes surrounding it.

I very much appreciate your interpretation of it with transcendental meditation, as the image I am describing is something that took over my vision

[i]I suddenly interpretted the world–saw it-- in a very unhabitual way… to be more specific, I didn’t see the whole of a certain thing in the environment, I saw all the different parts that mkade up that whole, it was a complete change in focus… and at that moment I saw an infinite amount of boxes, of possible interpretations of reality, surrounding the center box. They all looked the same, as each was a result of information my brain picked up form sight, but every box portrayed a possible reality according to how my mind would organize it.

It was the only time in my life in which I completely seperated myself from immediately “blinking” and jumping to the next box, and instead not having any opinion, but actually witnessing (the quantum world? I’ve heard descriptions of a honeycomb, which is what I compare the vision too) all of the possible scenes I could create according to how my mind chose to organize the sense information. [/i]

Right here is the closest way I can describe it, which is complete “telling” exactly how I saw it.

Still, I know the reader can’t completely comprehend it. We don’t have words and concepts in our language to properly describe these kind of experiences; they don’t have survival value.

The reason I didn’t give a specific color for the blanket is because the color isn’t important. Imagine one picture, and imagine it sorrunded by the same picture. So many pictures that each dot is one color. This is the solid colored blanket. And infinite number of colored dots.

The changing shades is the different ways my mind could organize the pictures (every box is the same picture, the same environment I see in front of me, all that is altered is the shade, my way my mind thinks about what I see).

I appreciate your comments, but certain types of advice can be useless (even detrimental, to the beginning writer) when you first don’t understand the writer’s purpose.

You read my poem as a peer ready to give advice… not simply as a reader, accepting what I have put out there, and interpretting it.

You basically didn’t accept the world I created, you attempted to change it to fit the way YOU would do it.

Advice coming from that standpoint is never helpful (just so you know for in the future, in case you are in writing workshops).

You can’t really compare poetry to a traditional realism style of prose.

Be careful that when you give advice you understand the writer’s purpose, you clearly didn’t this time.

I don’t mean to be rude, but a lot of bad workshops train writer’s to give bad advice.

I think you are right about how I shouldn’t keep repeating “box” though. I can search for a better way ot portray the image of zooming away from a box to reveal that it is in the center of a bigger box, and repeating this infinitely.

I also think you are right concerning my writing down the directions. It is distracting. I need to find a less rigid way of getting the point across that each cognition of reality is a box that can move in 8 different directions.

4

Hey, sorry it took me a while to reply… but, you know, with the whole Christmas thing and all. By the way, hope you had a nice Christmas (or whatever you may celebrate if this doesn’t apply… I here Festivus is starting to gain a following).

Let me just comment on some of the points in your reply:

When it comes to “Show not Tell”, I gotta admit I like keeping this little rule of thumb in the back of my mind no matter what I may be writing, whether it’s poetry or prose (unless I was doing some technical writing or something like that). The reason being is because I believe all writing to be emotional to some degree. Writing is expression and expression is emotional(even if it is in the most infinitesimal aspect). If you are trying to convey something… a message, a tale, a lesson, a day at the beach, there is always an emotion attached.

About the commas. I tried reading that part aloud and simply got a bit tongue tied when doing it without pauses. Was this what you were going for?

When you said we don’t have words to describe these experiences, I gotta disagree with you. I think that writers in the past have tackled many subjects(quite successfully) that were thought of as too hard to describe with language. It just depends on how defined the picture is that the writer makes and how resourceful they can be when making the attempt.

About the color. It’s interesting that you say the color is unimportant. I’m curious why you would mention it at all. With poetry we try to really squeeze out the essence of what it is we’re trying to describe… So, if something is unimportant it’s usually excluded :wink:

About the shading. Okay, then describe the shading that your Mind is using to organize the picture. Maybe expound upon just a few aspects that are being focused on.

Then, about the useless advice comment. Actually, I must disagree with you here. I don’t read poetry simply as a “peer” waiting to finish reading so I can reply with my own criticism. I’ve read lots of poems before where I’ve simply said, “Good Job” or even nothing at all. I definitely don’t feel compelled to always put in my two cents if I don’t have anything constructive to say. I also don’t like simply writing something dumb like, “This sucked” if I didn’t enjoy a piece. I like to write down what I might not have found to work and then maybe give a couple of examples/ideas of ways I think it might be better. Every writing board I’ve ever visited has seemed to work in this fashion, so I thought it to be the same here. Of course the writer always has the option of ignoring the advice.

The problem with the point of view that you seem to have is that you seem to think a reader and a writer are 2 different people and I should divorce myself from my good sense to just sit back and enjoy your piece while drooling in a vegitative state.
It wasn’t about not accepting the world you created (although, yes, your writing made it a bit difficult to accept), it was more about trying to point out that your world was a wire frame at best and needed a little flesh.

I don’t do writing workshops. Mainly just posting poetry and prose on various sites over the years (some well received, some downright torn apart). The comments I tend to give are just reflections of advice I thought was very good when given to me… techniques that add resonance and personality to writing.

But, you are absolutely correct! There is a lot of bad advice flying around out there. Though, I don’t believe I gave you any bad advice.

What I feel is that you are trying to describe something of a “Eureeka” moment in a grayscale format. It lacks the resonance to truly make me feel what your trying to convey. It’s like an accountant trying to describe the beauty of the human body by reading a list of materials that a human body is made up of. This method simply loses the grandeur of what is being described, and that was what I was trying to say with my earlier comments/critiques.

Lastly, I’d like to address your comment, "Be careful that when you give advice you understand the writer’s purpose, you clearly didn’t this time. "
I must admit this one did stick in my tooth a bit, like that popcorn kernal you just can’t get out. This is because years back I had a similar mindset (and still fall victim to it at times). You see, it’s utter folly for you to ask a reader(me) to understand your purpose, because it truly doesn’t matter. Not to sound callous, but once you place a piece out in the view of the public for general consumption, your point of view as the writer takes a backseat to the interpretations of those reading your work.

If I were to write, “Pink elephants stampeding through the forest.” I could tell people that I meant “Pink Elephants” was a codename for a small village in South America who made a mass exodus into the forest because they were about to be bombed, but if they don’t understand it that way, then it’s my fault for being vague or not using the right wording. If someone would interpret it as what a drunk person was describing in the 1940’s, then that’s how it is. And, I can’t tell them they’re wrong because that’s not what I was thinking of when I wrote it, because I can’t expect a reader to telepathically sense my mindset, only give them the clues within the poem or prose. If my clues are faulty or not fully developed, then the interpretation will be the same.

Anyway, I could go on and on with this subject, but I’ll stop here. I do apologize if I struck a nerve. I simply tried to make comments that I believed would be helpful and constructive. As I said before, if they were not, feel free to dismiss them or use any that you wish.

I get the feeling that we won’t see eye to eye on many things, but that’s okay.

Happy holidays and good luck with your writing :smiley:

5

Thanks for the nice words.

As for the rest… not applicable. Your style is completely different than my style (for THIS poem).

I often write in a style more like what you would like to see, but as I said, you are pushing your way of writing onto me (specifically, onto a poem that doesn’t call for it).

Like I said, some of the things you pointed out didn’t work for the reader, but as for color… shades, you are thinking of the words literally…

You are making the mistake of assuming I’m an amateur writer.

You are reading my writing as if we are in a (bad) workshop together. Like I am a beginning peer.

I’m not. You’re looking for what needs improvement, you’re not attempting to understand what I’ve given to you.

You’re making the common, lazy mistake of jumping to the conclusion that what you don’t understand doesn’t make sense. That what isn’t immediately apparant to you was obviously not well thought-out by the writer.

You tookw hat I said the wrong way about words that on’t describe experiences.

Obviously I was using words to describe something. I meant that there are not words that directly refer to things I was explaining (which makes “showing” impossible).

You obviously haven’t had a similar epxerience, this is a lot different than describing a car that drives by…

First off, there is nothing cute or witty about passive aggresiveness.

Second, it isn’t what I mean by “color” that is unimportant… it’s WHAT color it is, specifcally. Emphasizing a particular color destroys the whole point…

It wasn’t “my” world. I was explaining everyone’s world.

I don’t expect you to sit around in a vegetative state, but it doesn’t make any sense for someone to attempt to force a particular style of writing onto something that obviously isn’t directed towards that kind of expression.

Your realistic writing talks about the world as a person sees it… the poem I wrote describes a suspended moment in time before a person sees anything. That is how I can’t “show” in the way you want me to.

I wish I could explain it better to you… you just have to accept that the poem doesn’t mean anything to you because you haven’t experiences anything similar to what I am describing.

You really have NO idea what I was attempting to say… that’s what made a lot of your advice useless.

Stick to giving advice to what you know, someone attempting traditional realism.

6

Wow! LOL… You are really one angry person, huh? Are you always this pleasant to converse with?

Let me just point out… you said you’re describing “the world” as in this world. The one that we all experience around us. Which would make this a work begging for a realistic style. Yet, you believe this isn’t the case.

Secondly, you make no attempt to describe this moment within heartbeats within the context that you seem to want it to exist in. You plainly state the experience and assume a reader is going to “get it”.

Then you berate me for trying to help you out because you get the feeling I’m treating you like an amateurish writer. In this, you are completely correct, because I haven’t read any of your other pieces, so I am judging the poem completely upon its own merit and not in contrast to any other poems you might have written. In this case, yes, it sounds extremely amateurish… Obviously you don’t want any assistance, so that’s fine.

Your explanations are very weak, the poem reads like cardboard, and if you don’t care, I don’t care… and yes, this would be a prime example of a poem that would be read in a BAD writing workshop.

So, hopefully this post was completely loud and clear, because I wouldn’t want to be accused of being passive aggresive again. I promise not to darken your doorstep any longer maestro! I wouldn’t want to stick around too much longer or your brilliant intellect may be so much that trying to comprehend your message will make my head explode.

Although, I must say one thing… for someone who says they have had such an extraordinary experience. An experience that would be both majestic and humbling… an experience that would show you that you are a miniscule dot in the processes of the grand, living world around you. The rampant HUBRIS in your remarks sounds so out of place.

7

I’m not angry, I’m just giving it to you straight…

You’re annoyed, because I’ve challenged your self-concept, and instead of facing that you are using wink faces and writing sentences like the one you began your last post with.

I did NOT say this.

AGAIN, you don’t understand what I am saying, which is why it is irritating when you give me “advice” as if you do.

You are the one making assumptions… you have shown me that you are clueless what I am going for with this. I don’t expect anyone to “get it” unless they have had some kind of similar experience, that they have interpretted in ways that make the words I use accessible to their understanding.

I can’t take your opinion of this poem seriously because you’ve made it clear, time and time again, that you don’t understand what I am attempting to do with it.

I thanked you for some of your advice, and explained some of it was helpful, and then I gave you advice that I thought you needed.

There are many writers who think they are correcting a writer’s mistakes, when they simply don’t understand the writer’s intention.

I’ve heard the advice you gave me a long time ago, and it helped my writing then. However, it does not apply to what I did here.

Your inability to understand why isn’t my fault… you’re clearly a weak conceptual thinker and you take advice you have heard in the past and give it, even outside of the original context.

My explanations are weak because it’s your mind that is interpretting them. You’ve gaven me no indication you have any ability to think outside the box (or even understand the box to begin with).

I’m done, this argument is a waste of time for both of us.

Cliche as this phrase may be,
let’s agree to disagree.