On Not “Acting” Out The Words: Cohen & Reading Poetry
“The words die when you act them out, they wither, and we are left with nothing but your ambition.”
Speak the words with the exact precision with which you would check out a laundry list. Do not become emotional about the lace blouse. Do not get a hard-on when you say panties. Do not get all shivery because of the towel. — Cohen, 288
I don’t really want to write about performing poetry; it’s been a long time since I’ve done it, & I don’t know I have anything to offer on that score. Of course, you could take Leonard Cohen’s essay as discourse, really, about how to perform poetry. But since I imagine that more poetry is read alone, by/to oneself, even as we write it, I think we can probe this piece for the wisdom it offers to how poets think about their word selection.
I think it’s easy to picture someone, alone writing, getting “emotional” about encountering a certain shirt, aroused by the mere word, “panties”, & suddenly immersed in a world of sensation that has the poet “shivery” at their output. I’m not sure we ever get entirely physically divorced from the sensations we experience as we write. I can attest to having a fair number of shivers up my spine as I encounter a good line (reading or writing). I’d guess I’m not alone there, either. But we don’t want, to “put on” just for the audience (I’m using this word, audience, again, to imagine the individual/s that read poetry rather than a performance). Cohen says,
You cannot tell the audience everything you know about love in every line of love you speak. Step aside and they will know what you know because they know it already. You have nothing to teach them. You are not more beautiful than they are. You are not wiser. Do not shout at them. Do not force a dry entry. That is bad sex — 288.
I once observed, to my friends (among whom I am by far the most arrogant — though possibly also the least accomplished writer), that poets have to be arrogant, just to keep our heads above water. I’m not sure I really understood what I was getting at then. But now, in relation to what Cohen writes, I think of what I meant as a(n amateur?) disdain, like those who are so convinced of the value of what they made, that any who disagree are simply Neanderthalic boors; I believed I occupied a special space in the writing world. (Ha!) We only occupy such space if we’re good lovers, if we’re being honest, & we let the audience see how “they know it already”.
It’s a connection we’re after, not the position of number one, know-it-all.
To that end,
Do not work the audience for gasps and sighs. If you are worthy of gasps and sighs it will not be from your appreciation of the event but from theirs — Cohen, 289, emphasis mine.
Speaking from personal experience (& in conversation), there is a peculiar relationships writers can develop in relation to their work, which is the assumption of the “self-satisfied”. I like to think I’m more humble, these days: I haven’t accomplished what I wanted to as a writer (& in some ways, I’ve gone directions I never thought I would). I remember in my Creative Writing class in high school, during one group session where we were supposed to offer constructive criticism, one girl said to my comment, “Yeah, but that’s not how it really was”. In her stress of the “real” she betrayed the fact that she was in love both with her representation of the event, & how it played out in her head. She couldn’t see that if she leapt away from the strict representation/biography/event documentation or reporting (& I think I merely suggested she change a few words) that she might actually invite the reader in, get us to share in her interest/exposure.
But when one writes, it doesn’t make sense to hold the audience at arms length, to contrive the “gasps and sighs” you already desire. You aren’t giving them what they want, but you have handed to them the only way to read your piece: that is stale, flaccid: “dry entry”, “bad sex”.
Do not act out the words. Never act out words. Never try to leave the floor when you talk about flying. Never close your eyes and jerk your head to one side when you talk about death. Do not fix your burning eyes on me when you speak about love. If you want to impress me when you speak about love put your hand in your pocket or under your dress and play with yourself. If ambition and the hunger for applause have driven you to speak about love you should learn how to do it without disgracing yourself or the material— Cohen, 287
The idea is, I believe, to select your words with care, with precision, with attention. But do not anticipate the effect. Write your piece. Say it. But then the interpretative/reading activity belongs to someone else. Yes, when we revisit a piece, we are reading it, but with an eye to correct misapprehension, to clarify, to re-envision: not to imbue it with the response we hope for. Of course, we want every piece to be a smashing success. But, more often than not, poetry falls to the side. We are not alone. We are not as special as we might like to think we are. & we are completely unable to predict just what effect our piece might have. We should not try to condition our reader to a particular response because we cannot. It isn’t possible in the first place, so we should strive, instead to
Speak the words, convey the data, step aside. — Cohen, 287
Our audience will take this as respect, & you do want them to do that. You want them to connect with the emotions as their emotions. If you take it on, if you take away the relationship by determining in advance far too much, you will have eroded respect, & readers will have no time for you. Think of what you like to read, how you like to engage with work.
Remember,
The poem is nothing but information. It is the Constitution of the inner country. If you declaim it and blow it up with noble intentions, then you are no better than the politicians whom you despise. You are just someone waving a flag and making the cheapest appeal to a kind of emotion patriotism. think of the words as science, not as art. — Cohen, 289.
J.D. Harms 2020