Creative Collaborative Cagebreakers by Rhino Ravendove (no david read aloud txt) 📕

to come up with excuses to not ‘go for it.’ My litany includes; the learning curve is too steep, I am not talented, and who cares if I do it? Each of these cop outs are eschewed by the Cardiff Kook.

• Lesson #1: His kook-ness is proudly displayed and loved by the community. Beginners can be well loved.
• Lesson #2: Recognizing his unskillful style, the prankster can play a variety of roles. Experiment with new and personal approaches to the new art.
• Lesson #3: Great public acclaim and interest accrue to the kook’s variety of personae. Sometimes the different, unusual, and original are enjoyed by others.

Creativity can and should be fun and the prankster and the Cardiff Kook are great exemplars of the courage it takes to actually do and practice creative expression. Especially for those of us who were labeled at a young age that we couldn’t draw or sing or act or…? The clear cue is just do it, do your thing, express yourself. The attitude you bring to the art is more important than any talent you may think you don’t have. Sure there may be a long period of skill development. And yes, you may be seen as a ‘kook,’ but don’t let that stop you. The community may be waiting for the kind of kookiness you share. And who knows you may get to wear some fun costumes.


The Rhino: Piece 2

The following piece emerged out of my discovery of the world of academic ‘poetics.’ At a summer workshop at a renowned graduate school founded by Beat luminary, Allen Ginsberg, I recognized a familiar fog that I often feel when reading poetry found in many in MFA programs and journals. I noted a style where the writer’s finely crafted poems carefully hide the meaning in vague descriptions. These poems are then read from the stage word for word, head down, in a monotone voice. Coming out of the spoken word culture of today’s youth and the political rebellion of the sixties and seventies (Gil Scott-Heron’s The Revolution Will Not Be Televised), I was in shock. What is the purpose of writing a poem? What is the reason to get up on the stage? Naturally, the answers are as varied as the practitioners, but my inner quest led me to the core of my motivation. Is it solely to purge myself of my demons or to communicate my ideas and insights with others? Both are valid and useful and as the essay notes, maybe you don’t need to do a public reading if you are in the purging crowd.


Poetry and Communication

The youngish poet gets up to share her heartfelt words. She seems to be a very interior person and we catch a glimpse of a smile. Beginning with recitation from her recent play she enunciates slowly and in a low pitched monotone. As I struggle to hear her words, I also wonder what inspired her to get up to the lectern. Is she promoting her new book? Is she working on a long held phobia about public speaking? Is she reluctantly returning a favor? Strangely, the words that I was able to hear were filled with anger and resentment, a lot of emotion. Her second piece was a little stronger and was prefaced with an intro about an unappreciated Jamaican woman who nursed combatants in the Crimean War. I mused on the role of communication in art, specifically in spoken poetry. Who does it serve? What is the purpose? What makes it effective?

Coming from a profession where effective communication was crucial, I admit to a bias for poetry as a vehicle to inform, educate, and a bunch of other worthy social goals. On that rare occasion it may entertain at the same time the poet/ speaker is informing the audience. Moving onto the second poet, who was introduced as a machinist with numerous publications in renowned poetry journals, I was eager to be moved by his words. Would he incite me with strong social and political statements? Perhaps he would drill into me with his musing on the interior scape of intimate relationships. Beyond all hope I wanted to be stirred by powerful words about the human condition in the particular that might be understood on the universal. His words were calm and introspective depictions of his experiences at work and his daily life. So calm that when he finished a poem the crowd did not know it ended and he had to say, “In my next poem…”

Dangling imagery, clever word combinations, and flat intonations seemed to be the order of the day, until the last poet mounted the platform and took command. He wrote about his daily life, his new twin babies and shopping at Costco, the shadow dramas of Miles Davis’ life, and the street life in New York. What distinguished his work was presentation, a strong point of view, and rhythm. He varied the tempo, he altered his voice for different characters, he made declarative comments, he made his pieces live.

Poetry on stage is a communication art form. It stands on its merits by what it says and how it is said. Many questions arise in consideration of this point. What do we do art for? Is it to be shared with others? Can it be good art if it is not understood? Does a falling tree make a sound if no one hears it? This koan has danced around art and creative expression for millennia. One might say that the audience is just behind the artist who is avant garde and that is the limitation of the communication. Reminds me of a music festival I attended recently in Leimert Park. If you know L.A., you know the reference. In any case, in the middle of a very cool jazz set a middle aged man with a powerful voice read a long poem by a locally famous poet and musician. During the reading the band played appropriately rhythmic music. The reader used inflection, tone, volume and cadence to communicate the message of the poem. The music highlighted the spoken words. At the end the crowd rose in unison of agreement with a message shared effectively.

In the end, the work must stand on its own and the work is in the moment it is read. Did the writer share his/ her interior experience effectively? What did it do to or for the reader or the audience or the viewer? Perhaps in those terms a creative expression can be evaluated as art. Was it a solipsistic exercise? Was it a polemic? Perhaps it evoked insight or emotion in the recipient? On what terms does the artist want to be considered? The artists that make an impact, have an impact. Work that counts communicates.


The Ravendove: Piece 1

I was feeling pressured to get a lot of non-writing things done. The usual culprits; a light switch to replace, daughter’s homework to review, and a stack of bills on the corner of the desk. Where was I going to find the time to write? I like sharing this anecdote about Terry (whom you’ll meet real soon), and it gave me an opportunity to take off my ‘good boy pants’ and wade provocatively into the deep end of the creative pool.


The Creative Tryst: Finding Time to Flow

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: I’d love to create, if I could only find the time. I hear this a lot from my students. I hear it from myself, though not like I used to.
Terry Wolverton, author, poet, and one helluva writing teacher said, “Finding time to write is like finding time for your lover. No matter how busy you are, you always find time for your lover. Treat your writing time like a lover.“
You always find time for your lover

I remember my college days when the books were stacked high and the papers were scattered and deadlines stood behind me like waterfront goons with folded arms waiting for me to finish my work. But all it took was a call from mi amor and the books, the papers were left in the dust, granted that may have been more of an escape for me, but you get the point I’m sure.

Everyone finds time for their lover, even busy married southern state governors find time to tryst with lovers in Argentina.

Notice Terry said ‘lover’ not wife, husband, partner, etc. I think this is significant because your partner or spouse may not be your Lover, your Creativity. Relationships beget familiarity and familiarity can cool the heat that burned in the beginning.

But the fire for the Lover should never die. If it must cool then let it appear cool like the blue of a flame. That’s the hottest part of the fire is it not? It’s that kind of heat, that kind of passion that I believe Terry is talking about. That flaring, smoldering, sometimes simmering where throughout the day you’re preoccupied with the thought of spending time with your Lover, your Art, your Creativity.

An ideal and romantic state of mind? Perhaps, but an essential one to cultivate if you are called to create. You have to sustain the heat in your creative coupling otherwise interest wanes and you may find yourself on the couch in front of the tube ignoring your Creativity sitting next to you tapping its foot -- or worse, like Elvis, it’s left the building. Just like any spurned lover, Creativity will leave and find someone else who is open to spending time and tasting the goods She has to offer.

“But I have to work, I have kids, obligations...” Ever read about people who have affairs? We’ve all met cheaters and the cheated. I bet they were all busy people with busy lives. You may have even wondered, “Where do they find the time to do this?” or thought “How selfish!”

That’s kinda what I’m encouraging here: selfish time between you and your Creativity. Time to, as artist-teacher Ayize Little Crow says, return to the Dream. And stoke the desire to do so throughout the day, and then fantasize at night about rolling in sheets of music, spilling colors on the floor, getting messy, carving out moments of time to be with your Lover, meeting in gardens, empty unused office spaces, abandoned cubicles, on the beach, in a coffee house, in the garage, heck, in the bedroom after the kids are sleep, before they wake up and especially when your partner’s gone. Yes, I’m encouraging you to step out on your partner and have a tryst with Creativity.

And do it with all the gusto, the ache and titillation you