Poetry Saves Lives

The 2014 Dodge Poetry Festival reminded me that firmness and certainty are antithetical to truly magical writing--or at least to the type of writing I enjoy. I encountered none of this at Dodge.

Everyone I met and listened to at readings and panels seemed curious and generous. Perhaps the only certainty embraced was this: poetry should be an act of love.

Three magical moments for me: receiving a page of haiku from a stranger, listening to Dan Vera read, and receiving a handmade chapbook from a guy who admitted that poetry helps him cope with depression. While the first dozen or so pages are full of his poems, the back pages of the book are full of hotlines and numbers people can call for help if they are struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts.

While this Festival clearly addressed the engines of war and imprisonment that our country too often relies upon, I hope future festivals will address how our country still stigmatizes those grappling with mental illness.

If you're interested in seeing some of my tweets from Dodge (I tried to tweet about every event I attended) you can find me on twitter: @yesthatwarfield

The importance of being edited

If you've been a fan of Doctor Who for as long as I have, you understand that it is, at its core, a children's television show. That was how it was designed. Tom Baker knew this--he admitted as much in interviews on special edition DVDs. The writers know this. The actors know this. There has always been a certain amount of sloppiness that I think the show and its audience have tolerated--a certain gap between what's expected and what gets accomplished. The gigantic imaginations of the young (and young at heart) will seep into those gaps and make each episode seem smooth and magical.

However, this season, the gaps or sloppiness seem too large or ill-timed. It began with the writing of a practically gerontophobic Clara in episode 1, and smaller, hard-to-pin-down missteps in other episodes. One in particular grabbed me two weeks ago: Capaldi and Coleman are impressive actors, but even their talents cannot hold me in the scene below where a talented actor seems to be ill-placed by the director or forgotten by an editor. I took some screen shots and designed the following graphic to illustrate my point. What is supposed to be an emotional scene between the Doctor and Clara, becomes a film school lesson taught by Capaldi and Coleman.

Part of the fun of Doctor Who has been the acknowledgment of its fantasy elements:  a mysterious mad man in a magical blue chariot that's bigger on the inside, his screwdriver magic wand, the adventures he undertakes, and the oppressed he saves or empowers. The special effects have only recently gotten better, but I never tuned in for that. It was the fun.

As a kid, the fun didn't end when I considered how the mountains in my sandbox weren't real mountains. The fun ended when the adults distracted me. This my point about editing.

Editing is not simply the tidying up of mistakes. Good editing works to create a world that holds the audience, to let the audience feel embraced by the world of the text--whether it be viewer, listener, or reader.