Pen to Paper

I heard part of Walt Whitman’s poem ‘Pioneers! O Pioneers!’ the other day (in a Levi Jeans commercial, of all things). It struck a chord for me, so I thought I’d share the full poem here.

Come my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!

For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you youths, Western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the past we leave behind,
We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines within,
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Colorado men are we,
From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus,
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental
blood intervein’d,
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O resistless restless race!
O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!
O I mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Raise the mighty mother mistress,
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress,
(bend your heads all,)
Raise the fang’d and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon’d mistress,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

See my children, resolute children,
By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us urging,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

On and on the compact ranks,
With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly fill’d,
Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O to die advancing on!
Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come?
Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill’d.
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the pulses of the world,
Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat,
Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Life’s involv’d and varied pageants,
All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work,
All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the hapless silent lovers,
All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked,
All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

I too with my soul and body,
We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,
Through these shores amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Lo, the darting bowling orb!
Lo, the brother orbs around, all the clustering suns and planets,
All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

These are of us, they are with us,
All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait behind,
We to-day’s procession heading, we the route for travel clearing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you daughters of the West!
O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Minstrels latent on the prairies!
(Shrouded bards of other lands, you may rest, you have done your work,)
Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Not for delectations sweet,
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious,
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Do the feasters gluttonous feast?
Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock’d and bolted doors?
Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Has the night descended?
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged nodding
on our way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Till with sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the daybreak call–hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind,
Swift! to the head of the army!–swift! spring to your places,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

 I came across a couple links to a lecture by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, at this year’s TED talks.  You can watch it here (and I recommend you do).

Her main point is that it’s unfair and stressful, even depressing, to label someone as a “creative genius.” She explains how in the past, the genius was regarded as something separate from the artist, and the benefits to this point of view. I think that her message is important, but I’m more encouraged by the implications of one of her illustrations.

Gilbert describes sitting down to write and essentially having a meeting with her creative genius. Her point is that sometimes the genius doesn’t show up for the meeting; I think a corollary to this is that the successful artists are those who show up every time that the genius does. Of course, to guarantee this, you’ll have to show up all the times that the genius does not, too. In fact, it’s probably best to show up every day for a wide window of time, in case your genius is running late or misreads his calendar.

You’d probably refer to this habit as “self-discipline.” It’s a quality I tend to struggle with.  I’m getting better at it, though. It helps to have people who are successful at harnessing their creative genius (like Elizabeth Gilbert, Stephen King, the How To Make Webcomics team, and others) pounding that point into my head over and over.

For today, though, it’s encouraging just to hear that I don’t have to be a genius. It’s enough to tap into one.

In a recent episode of Dragon Page: Cover to Cover, J.F. Lewis was interviewed about how his recent novel Staked eventually led to the author “getting kicked out of [his] church.”  It’s a very interesting story, and I’d encourage you to give it a listen.  As soon as I heard it about a week and a half ago, I knew I had to write something about it.  I wanted to hold off for a bit, though, to make sure that I wasn’t just giving a knee-jerk reaction.

There’s a lot that I’m tempted to say, but a good chunk of it boils down to sweeping generalizations and name-calling.  For efficiency, I’ll summarize that part of my reaction: all of the jerks in the world are poopheads.

Moving beyond that, though, I think that the issue is one that people of faith (and from my experience, American Christians in particular) has always struggled with.  What are, or should be, the moral guidelines for art?  Should art reflect the world as it is, or as we think it should be?  Is anything fair game, or should religions get to say, “this is off limits”?  Is “authenticity” justification for showing characters sinning/doing bad things/engaging in morally questionable activities/being less than perfect, or should they always be perfect role models?  Should evil always be punished and good always rewarded?

I tend to think that the artist (and by this I mean any creative person) has to find their own answer to these questions.  Part of this process is to seek the counsel of friends, family, mentors, and religious leaders, but in the end no one but the artist can choose what to include or exclude in their work.  And in the end, no one but the artist is responsible for what they create.  It bothers me when people who have no role in a work’s creative process claim the right to censor it, to tell the artist “you can’t do that.”  If something offends you, don’t support it.  Vote with your dollar.  Don’t presume to try to force your way into an artist’s mind and change their moral convictions to match yours.

It’s interesting to me what people choose to object to.  If grandfatherly Morgan Freeman is playing God, that’s a movie for the whole family (despite questionable uses of power being played for laughes).  If it’s Alanis Morissette, though, that’s probably heresy (even if the film raises important questions about society and theology).  Not surprisingly, Dogma was banned by the college I went to, which also prohibited student actors from “drinking” on stage.  On the other hand, Thomas Kinkade’s works were perfectly welcome, and many of my artistic friends object to him for different reasons.

I’m reaching the point of this post where I feel like I should have an oversimplified conclusion, something like “Art = Good.  Excommunicating an artist because you disagree with their work = Bad.  The ‘Movie’ movies = Very Bad.”  But not only would something that clear cut be the opposite of my point, it would probably not be an accurate description of what I want to say.  Instead, I have two bits of advice.

First, if you’re an artist, give careful thought to the moral implications of your work.  If you can do something with a clean conscience, go for it; if not, maybe you should hold off for a bit.

Second, if you know an artist, don’t leap straight to “I need to tell them that they’re wrong” when you have a problem with one of their works.  First, ask if it’s you’re place to say anything; and if it is, do so as a friend or teammate, and not the morality police.

It’s always struck me as strange that in art museums, great attention is given to the medium of the work.  It’s not enough to say, “This is a painting.” “That is a scupture.”  “Those are drawings.”  Somehow it has become very important to label the art with note cards bearing details such as “Oil paint on canvas,” “Graphite on paper,” “Woodcut, in Oregon Pine,” “Strained Pea Soup on Braided Blonde Hair.”  For a long time, I had trouble understanding why it mattered that THIS painting was oil based while THAT paint was acrylic.

I even thought it was unfair that art was entitled to very detailed divisions, while other creative works were generally given large and wide descriptors.  “He’s an actor.”  “She’s a dancer.” “She’s a writer.”  “He’s a singer.”  When was the last time you checked the back of a paperback and read, “Typewriter on cardstock, via printing press.”  It seemed like artists were given permission to become incredibly specialized, while other creators were required to be masters of all aspects of their trade.

Recently, though, I’ve come to see that the distinctions are always there for people who care about the medium.  The specific information about what materials went into an art piece is provided for viewers who are curious about what the artist used.  Fans of writing will appreciate the distinction between a novelist, a poet, a playwright, and a blogger.  If you watch a movie, a television show, a stage play, and a musical, you will see that each requires a different skill set from the actor.  I don’t know much about dancing, but I can tell you that ballet, tap, ballroom, swing, and line dancing all have different moves and require different strengths from the performer.

What does this mean?  I think all the ways that creators can specialize and pursue different mediums demonstrates the difficulty of producing high quality art.  If anything, it drives home just how talented those people are who can perform in multiple mediums.  If we have more respect for an artist who can paint, draw, and make sculpture, or a writer who produces books and screenplays, then how much more impressive is the woman or man who writes, directs, and stars in his or her movies?

Art isn’t easy.  But thinking about it like this, I realize that I’d rather see it as a challenge than an obstacle.