Notes on The Lonely Hearts Show

If you haven't read The Lonely Hearts Show yet, you should check it out before you read this. You can find it under the Poetry section of this blog, or here.

As I mentioned in the short introduction to this chap-zine, the purpose of this project was to take a dive into writing with 'negative capability'. Negative capability is often defined as an artist's ability to make connections that are unbound by logical constraints. This is a suitable definition, but I would prefer to take it one step further. It is not just that the artist is able to make connections within their art that ignore logic, it is that they are able to find the unique logic of each piece they create, and in doing so, make decisions that increase its projective resonance (see my Notes on Olson's Projective Verse). What I am trying to say is that each individual work of art, story, song, etc... has its own resonant frequency, and the most talented artists are able to put their marks in the places that strengthen that particular resonant frequency.

So, what did I learn from the completion of this project?

I am currently taking an improv class, and we are discussing the concept of 'game'. The idea is that, during 'game based improv', the players (improvers) are searching for tension within a scene that can be extrapolated and placed in different contexts to create funny situations. In improv jargon, this is known as 'finding the game'. The thing that, in the world the players have created, is strange, and causing some kind of disturbance to what might otherwise be just a normal moment for the characters. To me, this mirrors negative capability in an important way. Both rely heavily on the implications of negative space, meaning they derive their energy from travelling through the unsaid/undefined.

In The Lonely Hearts Show, the logic I followed was that of a current concert set backdrop. I imagined, as I was writing them, that each poem was a video playing behind the Beatles as they performed their album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Indeed, by following this resonant frequency I arrived at the idea to make a physical chap-zine, to handmake the book, paint the covers and pages, and put them in little libraries around my neighborhood and beyond. I ended up making 5 individual copies of the chapzine, and I am glad to say they are all out there in the world, somewhere. The idea to make this physical aspect rejuvenated the project for me after I had thought I had finished with it several months prior. It is this kind of potential for significant continuation that shows me I am on the right path with a work, that I have found and am following its unique resonant frequency.

Of course, this can take time to find. As I mentioned, it took at least a full year for this somewhat minor project to reach full fruition. The lesson for me, then, is to trust what I feel. Even if I cannot seem to create a work that is immediately filled with energy, if I can still feel the idea thrumming I should pay attention to it. Listen to it, see it, touch it, smell it, taste it, meditate on it, (in other words, care for it: water it, right amount of light, etc...) and eventually the idea will take on the physical form it its trying to attain. I just have to let it.