W's, the five

One of my favorite strategies for opening any piece of writing is the seemingly conservative Five W's approach--the right-off-the-bat establishment of who, what, when, where, and why (and sometimes how).

this technique is so venerable and journalistic-y that many writers, wary of being labeled dry and flat, avoid opening with such overt exposition. in its place, they will often open with an anecdote or some other non-traditional "lead."

all well and good. who doesn't love a good hook? that said, there is something so intensely beautiful about an opening sentence that, right from the very start, clearly grounds the reader on all points of the expository compass. it's clarity at its purest. and perhaps this above all: there's a stark immediacy about such a sentence.

example, you say? let's look at Robert Ito's "An Occasional Hobo," a piece which ran in The Believer's June 2011 issue.

The piece opens thus:

In 1900, Josiah Flynt Willard, writer, amateur sociologist, and sometime hobo, published Notes of an Itinerant Policeman. In the book, he describes the often-unsavory world of fin de siècle American tramps: their begging strategies, their caste systems and codes, their hot tempers and underdeveloped intellects, their reasons for becoming tramps in the first place (number one: liquor).

great opener. and yet look at how reliant it is upon the 5W's.

When? "1900."

Who? "Josiah Flynt Willard, writer, amateur sociologist, and sometime hobo."

What? "published Notes of an Itinerant Policeman."
Where? [the where the book probes is] "the often-unsavory world of fin de siècle [fancy way of saying end of a century--usually, but not always, the 1800's] American tramps."

Why? [the why is not yet revealed, but, as readers, we know it will be developed as the article unfolds. hence, we have something to read for--namely, to discover why Willard wrote this book and (since writing about hobos presents all sorts of challenges) how he gained the needed access.]

give me a piece that opens with such immediacy and clarity, and i'm all in. i trust such a writer. i can commit to this person, the article, the prose. i feel in good, careful hands.

and that's what cogent openers can do. they orient the reader. and from this secure foothold, the article is free to fly (within reason, of course).

now it goes without saying (then why am i saying it?) that an opener which simply uses the 5W's for 5W's sake runs the risk of seeming Composition 101-y. is there anything worse? which is why i want to stress that i am NOT endorsing this technique as a ready-made device that works independent of a writer's particular style. what i am saying, however, is give it a go; see if this strategy works for a given piece--if only in the drafting stage (it's a great clarifying tool). maybe you only need to use three or four of the 5W's. or maybe you use two sentences, as Ito does, to unfurl them. there are no rules. none. make it work for you. play around and develop an organic feel for this technique. it will serve you and your audience well.

in my next post, i will return to Ito's piece. my focus will be on his diction (word choice) and the polishes a more careful editor might have suggested.

word(s), punctuation as

i'm interested in prose; that is, how WRITTEN words mean. concomitantly, i'm interested in how we teach prose, read prose, learn prose, school prose.

one day, yes, i hope to (self?) publish a (verrrrrrry meta) book on how lingering over certain examples of prose can make us better writers...if not necessarily make us write better (and there is a difference); for now, however, i will confine myself to this blog, the classroom, and the parenthetical asides which continue to metastasize with every post.

okay, so here is something that caught my eye:

in last week's new yorker magazine, rachel aviv wrote, God Knows Where I Am, a stunning narrative-based mental health piece.

I thought the below sentence would be interesting to consider for the purposes of "reading as a writer," which, for me, means reading not only for WHAT the text says, but also for HOW the text says it.

aviv writes:

"The hospital's crowded wards resembled those studied in Erving Goffman's 1961 book, 'Asylums,' which showed how, through years of institutional life, people lost their identities and learned to be perfect mental patients--dull, unmotivated, and helpless."

when you see the dash near the end of the sentence, what words are you tacitly filling in? take a second. reread the sentence, and imagine that you have been told to remove the dash and replace it with actual words. what did you insert? most likely, it was something like this: "that is, if you consider the 'perfect patient' to be...."

in effect, the rewritten sentences reads: "The hospital's crowded wards resembled those studied in Erving Goffman's 1961 book, 'Asylums,' which showed how, through years of institutional life, people lost their identities and learned to be perfect mental patients, that is, if you consider the 'perfect patient' to be dull, unmotivated, and helpless."

jeez. how heavy does this sentence suddenly become when we actually insert the words for which the dash was standing in?

and that's what i love about aviv's use of punctuation here. she's able to employ the dash so as to let the reader co-author a critique of the "perfect patient."

it's an elegant style and requires (from the author) a deep confidence in both the reader and the clarity of the sentence.

i should also note that this maneuver of using punctuation to replace words is hardly new nor difficult. we do it all the time--example: "Netflix just sent me Amélie, Y Tu Mamá También, and City of God." the commas are replacing the word "and," just as the comma is replacing the word "but" in "he was an important, now forgotten artist."

in using punctuation in place of word(s), aviv's use of the dash is not some radical difference in "kind," but rather in "degree." and something i admire when done well, and, of course, want to encourage (though very sparingly and with great prudence) in my own writing and my students.

a shape left in trees and other poems

(55)
how can i be sure i'm on the right path?
i can't.

my path is not something that waits to be revealed.
not something i find once the map is mine.

my path is a shape left in trees,
a branch bouncing back
a bird now in flight.

(56)
at some point, i will die.
that's the single truth i know.

lately, though, i'm not so sure.

yes, of course, i will die.
but until it is my time,
the only fact i can confidently prove
is that i am alive.

(57)
when i was younger,
i drank deep dents into bottles of booze.
i believed alcohol could unlatch the true me
and send him into the world, into action.

i just had this hunch, this bet, that there was someone
pure, angelic, and good at my core.
yet could only get out through the portal of booze.

eventually
i drank so much
and for so many years
that something seemed to die inside.
or maybe outside.
either way,
i no longer felt something sacred in my spirit,
no longer believed it could be conjured
through the alchemy
of vodka and ice and lime.

and without an inner me to drink for,
i lost the desire to drink at all.

but now, maybe five years later, the light's returned.
i feel my highest self still there after all.
i feel a pure essence asking again to emerge.

how will i try to set you free this time?
through nothing more intoxicating than wholehearted love.
this is the gift i will give.
over and over and over.
until the person who receives it is me.

sometime soon and other poems

(52)
i want nothing more than to live wholeheartedly.
yet it seems i do nothing but help my anxieties and fears
build walls whenever they ask.

sometime soon, though, i must make
the change i know is inevitable.
i must give my life over to love.
i must throw myself into this world
and practice compassion and connection
wherever i can.

still something holds me back.
i haven't harnessed the courage to rise above ego.
i still look for security in image and status and persona.
i still fear defeat and rejection.

and so i limit almost everything i do.
scared i might make mistakes,
scared i might lose.

yes, i can continue like this.
playing the odds,
and picking my spots.
here, living my most authentic self.
there, letting insecurity block out the light.

or i can remember that life's only real when lived through love.

---
(53)
if i believe i am different from you,
i will only notice the difference.

if i trust i am whole,
i'm invited to see
how we connect and unite
into this one.

---
(54)
on days i feel i'm not good enough,
that i deserve to be ignored,
i slip away from unconditional love.

but i need only to awaken to this world,
to all that brings stillness and space,
to the soft sway of trees in wind.

i only need to explore the unknown
and let my heart repeat, "where am i right now?"
until i see the answer is here.

birth and being and other poems

(51)
what does it mean to make something of one's self?
the answer depends on who's asking.

if i let someone else pose the question,
it appears i've failed to find my fortune.
that i don't even try.

but when i have the courage to ask,
i see the question itself is wrong.

i don't devote my life to this or that,
as part of some plan to make myself into someone new.

i am just trying to shed all i am not,
so i can experience all of who i am.
i am simply living from the one space i am whole.
my heart.

---
(52)
i've sacrificed so much time to comparing,
to judging, to wondering about self-worth.
someone seems to have it all,
and i wish i did, too.

in these moments,
i see myself split off from others, disconnected.

i want so badly to feel i have what they have.
that i am not alone.

but i do have what they have.
i am birth and being and soul.

only when i chose to obsess over the garments of division,
status and image, power and possessions,
do i miss what we all have, what unites everyone one of us:
the infinite gift of love.

how we share this power
gives life so much meaning.

poem: (50)

(50)
i fear there are some unforgivable faults in me
that, if i am not careful, people will notice
and use to dismiss my self-worth.
but in trying to conceal my failures,
i must take them everywhere i go.

too often, my mind gets caught up in what others have that i do not.
how much more important their lives must be.
how much power and influence and talent they must wield.
the friends and cars and trips abroad.

only when i spend an afternoon in the park playing frisbee
or an evening with yoga.
only when i wash my dish right after it's used.
only when i enter a thought i try never to finish, to keep open,
free of judgment and labels.
only when i remember deep, deep down we all are the same
and therefore all need the same.
only when i see beauty that doesn't require words.
only when i give myself unconditional love.
only when i give you unconditional love.
only when i see the inner light in me.
only when i see the inner light in you.

as i practice the growth of soul,
i see nothing is sacred but soul.
my fear i am not good enough,
have not done enough,
will never be enough,
all of this begins to fade
when i remember
true prosperity
exists within.

let me always be poor,
the most impoverished person alive,
if i try to measure true wealth through
who has more than me.
let envy and jealousy bring me to grief.

because the moment i remember
the same spirit spins
in me as spins in you,
i instantly return
to the unity and wholeness and connection
called life, called peace, called love.

made of things and other poems

(46)
last night, on the sidewalk,
i jogged by someone sprawled under a storefront awning.
i only glimpsed him for a second,
but he looked like the pure expression of suffering, of hell.

never before had i seen someone seem so crazed, so intensely broken.
everything filthy and mangled about him looked permanent.

at a different time in my life,
perhaps this wouldn't have wrecked me so.
but it did.
that is a human being,
i just kept repeating to myself.
a human being.
a family of which you are a member.

how are you willing
to let one of your own
rot?

---
(47)
if i don't bow and salute the life-force in you,
no matter who you are,
i am not sincerely recognizing and honoring it me.

what i am,
what i truly am,
is the rare recipient of energy that could
have gone anywhere but here.

when i see it in you,
i see my closest kin.

---
(48)
if i am brave enough to give myself unconditional love,
it doesn't mean i have defeated my fears.
but it does show who is stronger.

---
(49)
slowly i am coming to understand
the difference between
the inexpressible and the unexpressed.

the former leaves me speechless. amazed.
while the latter tricks me into believing i know the answer,
but without the words to prove it.

as i find little moments throughout my day
to let my mind sit still,
i see what a farce i've made of things.
i don't know the answer.
and i don't have the words.

yet what kinder friend is there
than one that teaches
to keep the question alive.