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Knight-Poet

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Freedom!

2 min read
I feel another rant coming on. What's more, it is about how I understand art, once again!

Art is supposed to be free. It should be free. Free to do its own thing. Free to be its own purpose.

But! Art should also be free to be political. Opinionated. Not only about beauty, but about issues. Free to be unpleasant, uncomfortable.

All art is about things that matter to the artist, in one way or another. That can be both "Ars gratia Artis" (Sorry for stealing, MGM!) and art that kicks some issue right where it hurts.

And another BUT! Art does not exist in a vacuum. Art exist as much because an artist makes it, as it exists because people see it. Art does not only spring forth from the artist's pen (or brush, or graphics tablet, or guitar, or hammer and chisel), but is also created in the heads of all the people who view it. (I have already done a journal entry about this.) Thus, NO ART IS ABOVE CRITIQUE, as no opinion is above opposition. And neither is it above dislike. No art is objectively antirely true, or valid, or good. Neither is it entirely untrue, or invalid, or bad. The rest is a matter of taste, and argument. A whole lot of argument, sometimes.
And that is just as well, because if it wasn't: Why bother? Why provoke? Why challenge our peers? Why be inspired or angered or touched? Why?

Knight-Poet out!
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Hi all!

This time I thought I'd write a few notes on the people in my poems and my short fiction. The "I"s and "You"s and "They"s, as they occur.

"I", for instance, is not me. Never.
But...
"I" is also never entirely not me. There is a bit of me in every first person narrator I write, be it in poetry or in short prose. How much there is varies a lot, and in some of my poems there is rather a lot of me, but: Always differentiate between the author and the narrator. They are not the same. (The first person narrator of "Back to the Office", for instance, bears no resemblance to me or anything I would want to be or do. Nevertheless, something of me has gone into creating him.)

The "You"s and "They"s are similar. They are not real people, even if I think of real people while I write them (which I do not necessarily do.) something of the people I think about goes into these characters, so to speak, but so does something of me. And a lot of "I just made it up". Again, to varying degrees. And, since I write them, even if I think of real people, this is always first filtered through my own perception, and then through ,my imagination.

Therefore: Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely blahdi blahdi blah and all that. Also: Hey, all these "characters" are, to a certain extent, space for identification. As you read, put bits of yourself into them, and find your own meaning (which does not even have to be anywhere near mine! Cool, huh?). Thus, they're not just me, and the people I know or meet or make up or pull out of my narrative hat, they're you as well. Creepy, huh? And cool.

So yeah, that's my thoughts about narration and perspective and characters.

Knight-Poet out :)
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Why I Write

2 min read
Why do I write?

For multiple reasons.

There are things in my head. Things that want out. I have these ideas that I don't want to keep to myself. They are like nagging secrets, and secrets are worth nothing if not shared. But I will not simply tell them. When I write Fiction, or poetry, I can express myself, tell secrets, express what I mean, and yet at the same time I don't do all these things. I hide myself, my meaning, behind smoke and mirrors, behind words. Sometimes it is easy to see through it, sometimes the truth is further removed, but always others have to discover their own versions of the truth. So I get to tell a secret and keep it at the same time.

There are thing in my head. Things that want out. And I let them out. Images, sentences, ideas. So I don't forget. So they stay and don't vanish into the depths of my mind. Sometimes you have to keep things outside of your head so they don't fade away behind more and more new things. Catch them. Ban them on paper, or on a harddrive.

There are thing in my head. Things that want out. Beautiful things and terrible things. And I want others to see, sometimes. To know that they are not only beautiful to me.
Writing is a way to say "Hey, look what I found, walking through my brain. Isn't it beautiful?"

And those are some of the reasons why I write.
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Featured

Freedom! by Knight-Poet, journal

'I' and 'You' and 'They' and such by Knight-Poet, journal

Why I Write by Knight-Poet, journal