Fresh Gardens

Rebecca OUP-US

Below is another great post from the Buffalo Poets.

By David Acevedo

Because years of reading “Masters” and “Classics” eventually your mind will collapse at the feet of the almighty screaming: They seem to have said it so good, what else could be said?

Or perhaps writer’s block has sealed your words and pages turn yellow underneath your pen. Face the facts: creation needs to feed and information in the rawest form works best. Today information is hacked at by the savage sophisticate; a block of information has tags from all over the language map, we’re lost swimming in information which has over saturated the individual mind. We’re forced to join in the network and trade this for that. I’ve been asked to write about keeping one self fresh and in the past I’ve only hinted subtly at what one should do because inspiration is a personal experience.

The entire art of writing is dependent on the mind. Performance on the page initially wants to project images in the mind of the reader. Words are equal to pictures but a writer can outperform a camera with a proper vocabulary. Language forms our entire universe, is mutable and we change it and it, therefore, changes us. This is the trick, to change and change. Dogen Zenji explained this as trading faces. Nothing is absolute nor is anything absolutely nothing, what comes from within us comes from outside forces.

Experience firsthand the sensation of a moment, any moment- observe it for as long as you can hold it with your mind, the situation of the moment- the goal and origin could be thrown away because the doing is where the effect is hidden. Take that and savor it with new ideas and skills learned.

Boredom is funny because with every distraction that western culture can offer it still arises, like a tired death dragging its shapeless corpse being picky over which grave to let its leg in. When I’m bored I like to reminisce, it acts as a form of time travel where I can forget the future and rekindle the dusty past to lament or rejoice. I prefer neither because sensation is a well waiting for my pail. I never find it dry; to become fond of experience is to create a storehouse.

Perhaps you have read a great deal and some author gone in form, but lives on through word, has smashed our skills to dust. A broken sword against petrified wood. What to do about this? How to pay homage and respect to those who writ before and yet to keep it original and modern? What to do. Well, if I haven’t told anyone yet, a good drink could get the ball rolling….. Getting real cozy with the words of the past is like making a fire the old way. Speaking the language of a world that doesn’t exist in order to complete the tasks of the present immediately shows the incomplete images both times project. We can see what works and carries on through today and what has been discarded, but we can also see what is leftover to try and form the same idea in a different way- and that’s the modern situation of media. How many poems can you break apart, diminish to one word and retain its initial point? Whose language is so complex that a new lexicon is created to translate to other mediums of art? Ever paint a novel or write a painting?

Some of my favorite processes of creativity come from Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs. Jack’s Spontaneous Prose approach introduces freedom so that where the mind wanders, acceptance is immediate and yet one does not have to commit to whatever comes on the page, the rules stand as First Thought Best Thought. Burroughs’ experiments with The Cut Up Technique utilizes the present work as the body which one explores through visceral means, pulling apart what was, to reveal the message hidden between images of words. Is the subconscious there, living as an unseen eye, watching?

And for all the sleepy-headed dreamer writers, what better method for discovering images unpronounced on the mind than lucid dreaming? This is a process where the dreamer dares to control their dream. Some operations in this process include keeping a journal of dreams and the exercises of keeping aware while dreaming. In your dream you can try the following: Read, look at your hands and fly. Become aware and know that you are dreaming and know the will to wake is in your control.

The world that we exist is the same world four hundred years ago, the sun and moon older than that. What appears before you is a reflection of yourself. Embrace all that is as it appears to you and know that the cyclic origin resides in the root of experience. Admire and celebrate for we are the eyes of the universe that watches and waits for itself. If you happen to be in a writer’s jam or not I suggest you take my advice on any of these exercises, if the fruits are not immediate allow time for roots to take hold for future harvests.
Healthy gardens to all!

Born out of the seedy underbelly of the poetry scene at the turn of the millennium – The Buffalo Poets, known for their unique energy and wit, began hosting open readings as a direct reaction to Slam Poetics and cookie cutter style poets found in New York City.Hailing originally from New York City, the Buffalo are composed of four core members: Roger Kenny aka King Otho, Aaron Arnout, Noah Levin and David Acevedo. The Buffalo have many artists throughout America including, James Honzik, Michael Franklin, Kevin Callahan and the infamous activist Rafael Bueno.