Working with words

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I like what Gémino Abad says about why he writes: “I was curious how one could look with words and see things clearly again” (State of Play 14). Implied in his statement is the driving force — call it curiosity or necessity, or call it passion — that propels writers into a world of words.

For as soon as writers, according to Annie Dillard, “lay out a line of words … [the] line of words [becomes] a miner’s pick, a woodcarver’s gouge, a surgeon’s probe. [They] wield it, and it digs a path [they] follow” (qtd. in Burke and Tinsley 16).

Following those lines of words becomes an arduous journey for writers, though. The opening they carve in the jungle of language leads them into an unknown and, more often than not, labyrinthine path that may seem to lead them to forks or crossroads before it brings them somewhere “meaningful.”

To understand how they clear a way through the dense foliage of language, the linguist Roger Fowler contended that “linguistic methods and tools [are] necessary for the proper and detailed analysis of literary texts” (Green and LeBihan 3).

What this kind of analysis achieves is an understanding of how linguistic units construct a text (a line of words, according to Dillard; a stretch of language comprising one or more units of meaning, according to Green and LeBihan) from the level of speech sounds to the syntactic level.

This kind of description grounds any possible interpretation of a text; that is, whatever impressions a reader may get from a text can always be cross-checked against its grammatical construction.

What this formal analysis lacks, however, is a description of the context to which a syntactical unit belongs. This “knowable context” accounts for how a text “is transformed into discourse when it forms a coherent whole.” For example, we understand the following text not only as a sequence of imperative sentences but also as belonging to the discourse of recipe books: “Wash and core the apples. Put them in a bowl” (Green and LeBihan 8).

We are able to understand the sentence quoted above because we recognize the style usually adopted by writers of recipe books. Stylistics, however scholars may agree to define it later on (the verdict is still out), provides us a better grasp of a particular discourse through its identification of linguistic features that may be typical and/or unique in a particular genre.

Which leads us to the next question: Is there such a thing as a language unique to literature? How is this language different from the “ordinary” language we use to communicate in our everyday conversations?

The Russian Formalists, way back in the 1910s-1920s, asked the same questions in their investigations into what made literature literature? Influenced by the philosophical works of Edmund Husserl, they wanted to find out what distinguished literature from philosophy, sociology, psychology, history, and other fields of study (Rivkin and Ryan 3).

They focused on the use of “poetic” versus “practical” language in literary texts. One result of their investigation was the realization that, according to Viktor Shklovsky in his The Resurrection of the Word, “‘artistic’ perception is a perception that entails awareness of form” (Eichenbaum, in Rivkin and Ryan 10).

According to Boris Eichenbaum, “art is expressed in a special usage of material, the principles of the palpableness of form had to be made concrete enough to foster the analysis of form itself — form understood as content. It had to be shown that the palpableness of form results from special artistic procedures acting on perceivers so as to force them to experience form” (in Rivkin and Ryan 10-11).

(To be continued)

Works cited:

Abad, Gémino H. State of Play: Letter-Essays and Parables. Manila: Kalikasan Press,

Burke, Carol and Molly Best Tinsley. The Creative Process. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993.

Green, Keith and Jill LeBihan. Critical Theory and Practice: A Coursebook. London: Routledge, 1996.

Rivkin, Julie, and Michael Ryan (eds.). Literary Theory: An Anthology. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1998.

Why I write

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Ricardo M. de Ungria, in his introduction to A Passionate Patience: Ten Filipino Poets on the Writing of Their Poems (1995), says that poets — and perhaps most writers — become reticent when asked to talk about their works or their own writing process.

And when they do say something about how they wrote their creative works, according to de Ungria quoting I. A. Richards and Harry Levin, the kind of talk writers make about their oeuvres become “suspect.” Whatever they say may be construed as self-aggrandizing statements about their art or artistry.

For how can writers honestly describe what went on inside their heads while writing their pieces?  Since ancient times, the creative process has always been cloaked in mystery and mysticism – with the genesis of creative works ascribed to divine possession or to the inspiration of the Muses or to the duende. The same idea persists to this more rational age, and may account for how the rest of humanity looks at writers and other artists.

But the actual production of creative works may involve artists applying the same rigor as that demanded of scientists. As de Ungria quotes Valery: “Graciously the gods give us the first line for nothing, but it is up to us to furnish a second that will harmonize with it and be unworthy of its supernatural elder brother” (xv).

The scientific method employed in empirical investigations finds its parallel in the four stages of creative production – preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification – or the more pared-down two phases – inventive and selective/critical (de Ungria xvi). So writers labor, as Horace pointed out, hoping they do not produce a mere mouse.

And the operative word is labor. For writers and other artists do not just pull out of thin air and present with a flourish a poem or a novel or painting; rather, they toil over their creations – poring over the lines they wrote, changing a word or two, or applying more paint onto the canvass.

And this striving benefits a writer’s psyche more than the pocket. So the question asked of writers, why do they write?

As Gémino H. Abad explains in “Why I Write,” originally published in his Manila Chronicle column and later compiled in a book entitled State of Play: Letter-Essays and Parables (1990), he writes because he is “obsessed with Writing” (13). He elaborates: “Writing is what I’ve always wanted to do, and believed I could do best … I was curious how one could look with words and see things clearly again” (14).

For Abad, writing is about language and cognition. And we will tackle that next week. But first …

Why do I write? Perhaps I can illustrate my “obsession” by quoting a passage from Ricky Lee’s Trip to Quiapo: Scriptwriting Manual (2001):

The writer’s task is to see, and to show others what s/he sees. When we watch a magic show, we just don’t enjoy it with jaws hanging in amazement. We go backstage because we need to see how the magic is done. And if we aren’t allowed backstage, we imagine what is there. We writers like going backstage [translation added]. (3)

How about you, why do you write?

Writing into the future, part 2

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Last Sunday’s featured works — the excerpts from Attriu Marcus Cabusao’s fiction and Kid Millado’s bricolage of Sandman and Batman — are just some of what readers of high art or popular literature are inspired to create.

And the inspiration does not always come from cultural artifacts from America or other foreign shores. Vanessa Almeria, a Creative Writing student of UP Mindanao, teamed up with Glen Obenza, a BA English student from MSU General Santos, to produce their comic book, GiMix UP.

Drawing from the popular Kiko Machine Komix, a compilation of comic strips originally published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer and created by one-time Philippine Collegian Graphics Editor and Fine Arts graduate Manuel “Manix” Abrera, Van and Glen came up with their own cast of major and minor characters. One such character is the bully Rambo, seen here playing a prank on an unsuspecting professor. The joke might be a bit stale, but is given a fresh treatment with how it is told panel by cartoon panel.

“GiMix UP is a collection of cartoon panels that tell a joke or a story,” Van explained during her presentation. “Unlike Abrera’s Kiko Machine, it has three major student characters namely, Menggay, Rambo, and Abby. Menggay is an emo chick, Rambo is a bully, and Abby is a strong-spirited gay male. One of the major characters in Kiko Machine is used as a minor character in GiMix UP, but appears only once (Menggay and her admirer’s scene). The structure is also patterned after Abrera’s Kiko Machine. The jokes and stories are mainly about the tough and challenging life in UP Mindanao. Given that the issues are about the students’ experiences in the university, the scenes are all set in familiar UP Mindanao hangouts, say for example, Ate Ling’s, Kiosk, Canteen, CHSS-AVR, etc. We used Bisaya given that our target audience comes mainly from Mindanao. But we also used some Tagalog, Ilonggo, and English words and phrases, not to mention gay lingo, to show the diversity of the students’ lifestyles and attitudes.”

More original in conception, though still drawing from the popular manga, is Jasper Nikki de la Cruz’s Siatong: Gisaksak sa Puso, Mitulo ang Dugo. Adapting the popular manga format using ordinary games or toys to power a dueling narrative – Beyblade, Super Yoyo, Yugi-Oh, to name just a few – Jasper crafts a story about a group of friends who sets out to win the Tagum Siatong Championships.

Jasper provided this gist for his graphic story: “My story is set in Tagum ten years from now. Emos have been banned from existence. Siatong has also been recognized as the Pambansang Laro ng Lungsod ng Tagum. Four friends – Kate B. Kinse (a very kind-hearted kid), Drake You (the alpha-male bestfriend), MC Concepcion (the most skillful and underrated player), and Tangz (the strategist) – sign up for the annual Tagum Siatong Championships. But they have to win the Poblacion Qualifiers first. They meet up against Finding Emo, the Emo Revival Activists group lead by Ultiemoticon. What follows is a brutal combat of siatong as the Emo group cheats their way into the game by using loopholes in the rules.”

With his friends, Ivo Angelico Auxilio doing the art and Simon Ed Lusan providing the color, Jasper (in his own words) “attempts to abuse the archetypes and clichés of the genre,” but in the process also presents a riotous and sidesplitting adventure.

(Next week: Romancing the romance, Mindanao style)