Dear Henry
Hope is a thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all.
—Emily Dickinson
***
Dear Henry,
I found an old scrap of paper in my jewelry box with a diagram written on it entitled “Spectrum of Literary Truth.”
The diagram is just one long line.
The left end says “fake” and the right end says “true.”
“Plays/Theatre” is on the left end of the spectrum. ”Novel” is in the middle. And “Poetry” is on the right.
***
We had this argument a long time ago.
I was trying to convince you to stop writing books and start writing poems.
Don’t get me wrong. Your books are amazing.
But your poems are other-worldly.
Plus poetry gets to the heart of the matter. There are no characters to hide behind. No plot to obscure the real message. No arbitrary chapter divisions. No awkward expository descriptions that break the fourth wall. And for crying out loud…don’t you hate writing dialogue. Don’t the quotation marks drive you nuts? Don’t you hate having to write the comma and then the “he said” or “she said.” Doesn’t it feel so forced?
There’s none of that with poetry.
Just be a poet, Henry. Just do it.
I think that’s how the conversation ended.
***
So you can imagine my surprise when I got a copy of your manuscript.
I opened the file expecting a collection of poetry.
But instead it was a novel.
***
Here’s my last ditch effort to change the course of your literary life.
***
Whether you’re writing a novel or a poem you’re still essentially doing the same thing: telling a story.
You can either tell a story through plot…or tell a story through sound.
And let me tell you why telling a story through sound is better.
***
Ya know what the worst possible question in the world is?
“What’s this story about?”
When you’re asked that question you don’t know how the hell to respond. So you say something like, “Well, it’s a story about a man who kills someone and then goes crazy with guilt.” And no matter how detailed your answer is, you don’t feel like you did the story justice.
You know why you feel that way? Because you didn’t. You didn’t do the story justice.
And you didn’t do the story justice because you answered the question by explaining the plot instead of the subtextual message of the story.
The plot might be “a man kills someone and then goes crazy with guilt” but the subtextual message might be that guilt is the ultimate murderer…that guilt is a form of death that keeps killing the holder each and every day.
The subtextual message is always more important than the plot. The subtextual message is the point of reading the story at all. And yet, with novels, you have to go through the plot first before you can arrive at the subtextual message.
***
The reason telling a story by sound is better is because the subtext comes first and the plot comes second.
There is an urgency to the message.
Feel first. Understand later.
With sound the subtext is so important that it barely even matters if you can understand the plot at all.
And poetry and sound are the same thing.
***
Theodore Roethe’s “My Papa’s Waltz“ was my gateway drug. I read it when I was 9.
Some clueless editor put it in a compilation of poetry for children. It was under a chapter entitled “Fathers Day.”
I remember reading the poem and stopping dead in my tracks.
There was no doubt in my mind what that poem was about.
Years later, I read about the huge debate surrounding the poem. And I think the confusion people feel when they read it is intentional. Because the actual real-life event is just as hard to parse. The poem is brilliant because it puts you exactly in the mind of the child who has no idea what is going on.
The plot is: a father is putting his son to bed.
The subtext is: the child can’t figure out if he’s being loved or being hurt.
***
Henry there’s no shame in being a novelist. None at all.
But there are so few people who can tell a story with sound. There are so few people who can communicate subtext. And even among those who can, there are so few who do it well. And even among those who do it well, there are so few who do it beautifully.
You do it beautifully.
So do it beautifully forever.
Do it beautifully for the rest of your life.
***
Never Stops At All like,
Me
