#i mean they have a thriving literature discourse community I assume

[auroraborus]

Garak already owned one from his cosplay days (how he learned to tailor) but never mentions it because he now considers it cringe

Something about Garak turning up in "Our Man Bashir" in a fitted tuxedo in the same style as Bashir's, showing that either:

He replicated one just before hand (and therefore that not even the station's tailor wears tailored clothes)

He's been spying on him each time he goes to the holosuites with the intention of reverse engineering his outfit

Bashir commissioned the original suit from him, and Garak decided they needed matching outfits.

[radiqueer]

Rai@Tired | raikamudapon

[link] Tbh the discourse around the term "fujoshi" is just motivated by shaming women for their interests and sexuality, and specifically trying to seem woke by taking Japanese fan girls down a peg.

Yalls need to stop with that orientalism and colonizer attitudes. 

[link] Ok so, One of the biggest differences of how I see Japanese people digesting media and how Americans digest media is the ability to separate oneself from the topic. 

Japanese people are used to living with duality. The culture of Japan is all about honne and tatemae, and while a lot of Americans think of tatemae as situational lying, it's a specific form of communication that adds a buffer of space between people. Sometimes that buffer is helpful and sometimes it isn't but that's not what we're discussing today. 

In the same vein, Japanese fans consume media with that buffer space, and you see the difference in fandom spaces very keenly. For example, Japanese cosplayers don't tend to roleplay. I feel like the community discourages it, especially in public spaces because the idea is that you are not acting as a character or placing yourself in the character, you are borrowing a character to temporarily express yourself. In america you see encouragement of becoming the character and more closely associating with them in a way you don't really see in Japan. With cosplay, a lot of original outfits with characters isn't as widely accepted, and people are encouraged to add warning tags to heavily modified designs or non-cannon outfits. There's often a buffer between self expression and character expression, and Japanese people in general tend to have a clearer cut between fiction and reality. Americans go the opposite direction, and put themselves personally in to their fandoms. Any criticism or portrayal of a character isn't about the character, it's about *them*. 

Bl for many fujyoshi is a way to explore various topics about sex and gender, and have that safety barrier of "this is fiction that has nothing to do with reality". Theres even a famous phrase in bl circles of Japan, which is "BL is fantasy." People arent consuming bl content because they want to it be realistic. With this genre, a lot of American's first exposure to this culture is through groups that carry these Japanese ideas, especially that fiction is not about reality. There's a strong culture in fujyo circles in Japan to keep fujyo media hidden from from minors and uninterested people. 

This isn't because gay adjacent media is shameful and should be hidden, but because aside from keeping 18+ content away from minors, the content is inherently not for the benefit of non-fujyoshi, or people looking for canon content. Bl is a fantasy exploration of pre-established media, an additional step away from reality. And you see this influence in american bl fans as well. Most responsible adults discourage 18 under people from interacting with 18+ content. It is going to be much rarer for 18+ bl content to be presented to minors with no prior warning then for het media or media that explicitly sexually objectifies women. 

 And I think in conversations about this topic is where you see not just misogyny and sexual policing of woman come in, but a lot of conversations and ideas revolve around how "gross" and "strange" and "foreign compared to woke Americans" the entire culture of fujyoshi is. 

Trying to insist that Americans determine what definitions of language around a culture not originating or centered in America and sentiments about bl are "appropriate" is colonizing attitudes. It stems from the belief that the cultural values of the colonizer are inherently superior to another country. And treating the norms of a foreign sub-culture that was not only established in Japan but continues to flourish and be the center of media produced by that subculture as gross or strange is honestly tinged with Orientalism of the "sexual far east". It's hard to say that the image that all fujyoshi are women does not influence these ideas as well. 

So let's delve in to relations between Japan and America for a hot second. Japan and America have a very unique relationship, especially for countries that are separated by the biggest ocean in the world. Without examining the entire history of the two countries, I want to focus on two points that I think shape the way Americans interact with Japanese media. First, America with it's "black ships" was the one to end Japan's Sakoku policy. They forcefully demanded Japan end it's strict regulations concerning interaction with other countries, start trading with various countries, and to open up to western influences. 

This *greatly* changed the structure of Japan, and honestly the unequal treaties and inability of the Tokugawa shogunate to manage their relations with the west lead to the end of 264 years of governance. (The Meiji restoration is exciting, please read about it.) 

The second topic you don't see many people discuss is the occupation of Japan by American(and English) forces from 1945–1952. While a lot of modernization and things that benefited common people occurred during this time, there was also wide spread instances of violence and rape. You still see generational hurt and mistrust in places like Okinawa, Sasebo, and Yokosuka where American navy bases were placed(and still exist today). If you can stomach it, I would recommend looking up statistics and reports, but I warn you the occupation was nasty business for women. 

So what does this all have to do with modern fujyoshi? So in both of these time periods, prostitutes and courtesans were an essential part of political interactions. Many Americans gained their stereotypes about Japanese women through these encounters. Specifically these interactions were sexual or tinged with the sexual availability of these women, and looking at the increased rapes during the occupation once American GI focused brothels were abolished, you can see how this lens shaped Americans opinions of Japanese women. The story of madame butterfly is only unusual in that it gives the woman in it any agency in their interaction with american men. 

So with this in mind, I think it's easy to see where a lot of stereotypes, specifically sexual stereotypes about Japan and Japanese women come from. America is used to looking at Japan as "the weird strange place of loose morals and loose women of strange sexual proclivities." This is shown how strong the influence of Japanese women as "geisha girls" is to this day, and it tints any conversation of about women and sexuality in Japan. 

In modern day, you can see this carry over in to how people look at Japanese idols and women in anime. I would even say that it's evolved to infantilize Japanese women and the view of how Japanese women are expected to behave. A lot of other people have written literature and reading about fujyoshi and how it relates to the sexual liberation of women(without necessarily involving men or gay men) so I won't go in to that here, but there will be links at the end of the thread. 

What I want to talk about is how historically America is used to putting itself front and center about any topic about the culture of Japan, and how the views Americans have about morality is considered to be "better" and more "woke"... even without context or how those sentiments shape the ideas of foreign people and foreign based media. But we also have to address how Americans have a huge problem with not being the expert voice in any conversation. 

Over the last week, a significant number of Americans have been extremely comfortable in putting the power to decide what Japanese words mean and what Japanese sub-cultures are in their own hands, sometimes even attempting to remove my Japanese voice and background from me in an effort to center their own opinions. And honestly this isn't anything new. Americans are so comfortable with thinking of Asian voices as less influential then their own, that it doesn't stop people from thinking they are the experts about a topic that *does not come from their culture*. You see it with food, you see it with fashion, you see it with everything from equating Asians to *white lite* to assuming that Asians don't exist as mixed people but simply as a monolith. 

There are so many people who were comfortable with placing themselves as experts in a sub-culture of Japanese origin that they knew nothing about, simply because they assumed it corresponded with one aspect of themselves. And it is hard to say that the confidence that these people placed themselves and their ignorance in the middle of the topic did not stem from Americans feeling of ownership over everything they enjoy. 

The people supporting these people may have thought they were being good allies by blindly supporting them, but I saw very few people bothering to further their knowledge past the loose collection of stereotypes and horror stories I saw from the internet. Some of these feelings of superiority probably stem from the fact that these people assumed that all fujyoshi or bl content consumers are women. Misogyny isn't just the expression of hate towards women, but also the idea that non-women inherently have a more valuable opinion then woman, or that women's ideas are inherently less valuable then anyone elses. 

I saw a lot of misogyny this week, both internal and external. There was hate from many people, for the idea that people they assumed women were thriving in a sub-culture that does not involve real gay men. I saw people who could not imagine that men were not at the center of a subculture created and supported by both women and queer people. I even saw examples of women bringing up their experiences as a gender they do not identify with in order to raise their voice against other assumed women. But the voices that attempted to de-legitimize assumed women grew even louder once they were speaking against Asian people, because there is an inherent assumption that their views are qualified, their opinions more valid, their morals better. 

And honestly, this isn't just an issue with white and eurocentrific supremacy, this is an issue of American supremacy. 

 And that is certainly something we need to talk about.

link: thread by @futekiya

link: thread by @dionysiaca

link: thread by @raikamudapon

please consider donating to @raikamudapon’s ko-fi

[reformatting mine]

[poetsalive-blog]

On Rebecca Watts’ Essay “The Cult of the Noble Amateur”

(Author’s note: This is a rebuttal to Watts’ essay which can be found here: http://www.pnreview.co.uk/cgi-bin/scribe?item_id=10090 ) After hearing that Rebecca Watts has received abuse for the above article “The Cult of the Noble Amateur,” I decided that constructive discourse was needed. As a poet and critic,  I find it very upsetting that any person would receive abuse let alone a person seeking to have a difficult conversation on the direction of publishing, prizes and popularity. 

 I will begin by saying I disagree with Watts’ arguments that the world pretends poetry is not an art form and that social media has helped dumb it down. However, I do understand her frustrations with turning out technical, complex poems that ask for critical engagement when quick-to-digest pieces seem to garner a lot more attention in the current poetry market. Let me assure everyone though, that there is space for both subgenres of poetry and both are art. 

The problem with poetry, a number of family members tell me, is that they don’t understand poetry. Their memories of poetry are being forced to memorise passages of Shakespeare, Wordsworth and other poets whose work bore no connection to the realities of their everyday. I come from a working class background and I do see the disconnect between high literature and the interests of that demographic. They feel spoken down to and thus, poetry found itself relegated to classrooms as the average person turned away from text that they felt didn’t get them. People like to see themselves in all forms of media and art. It is why increasing the number of minorities and LGBTQ in entertainment is getting a lot of advocacy: these demographics want to see themselves in the forms of entertainment they enjoy. Why shouldn’t they? 

Therefore, when we scour the literary landscape for journals to submit work to, we find a lot of specialist titles; journals for LGBTQ only, women only, language poetry only, poc only thrive alongside bigger publications that display more diversity in order to speak to more demographics. We are fine with this so why not the rise of “spoken word on paper” (or perhaps we could coin this type of poetry “pop poetry)? I’d like to think that poetry has made inroads towards peace with language and prose poetry. Is pop poetry not the next in line to be added to the roster of styles we celebrate? The Ted Hughes Prize is certainly leaning that way. I agree that honesty in poetry is nothing new. It is also true that this is not the first time honesty in poetry has been challenged. 

The Confessionals of the mid-1900s received much criticism for being too prone to, as Robert Phillips phrases it, “ public breast-beating” and narcissism.[1] When Confessionalism came to the forefront of the poetry market, critic Charles Molesworth wrote that the movement was “a degraded version of Romanticism” and that the Confessional poet was a “failed sage.”[2] Robert Bly accused Robert Lowell of “offering his readers nervous excitement rather than poetic excitement.”[3] In the end, the handful of genuine Confessional poets produced poetry that has remained in “the spotlight” even now. Just as we had our Plath and Sexton as young writers, certainly young poets are entitled to the “disarming honesty” of McNish and Tempest’s work (which applies to today’s young concerns) and to see that it is doing and achieving something in the market besides racking up YouTube views. 

In terms of the style of poetry that demands more of its readers, there is still plenty of room and praise. However, does the rise of “spoken word on paper”  / pop poetry mean you will need to do a little more research as to which prizes you submit work to? Of course, but you should be doing that anyway. You should know who the judges are and what interests they have in the moment so that if the Ted Hughes Award is going the way of a style you don’t write, you will know not to submit (and save yourself the fee). There is no shortage of journals, prizes and publishers for poems that utilize higher diction and complexity and enough people submit to these journals that the competition is fierce as ever. 

Kaur, Tempest and McNish are thus the types of poets for people who would have left poetry behind in secondary school. There is nothing wrong with that. Their style allows the audience to stay engaged in a performance and their use of social media utilizes a platform that the public is addicted to. They are reaching out to the public rather than expecting the public to come to them. In terms of high literature at readings, I’ll use the example of John Ashbery – whose poems are difficult and take work.  Trying to absorb John Ashbery in real time can be quite a task let alone fully “get it.” The books of Kaur and McNish require less strain and as such, watching their work and also having it at hand are akin to reading along song lyrics printed in cd jackets (or cassette tapes if anyone else can remember these) while the music plays. I fail to see how “easy to grasp” equates with bad when it seems to me that the experience is just different. One of the most poignant examples of spoken word poetry being at the right place at the right time was Tony Walsh’s delivery of “This is the Place” at the Manchester Bombing vigil. On paper, the poem lacks what you call “intellectual engagement” and “craft,” but when delivered, Walsh gave the community it what it desperately needed. The performance was powerful, to say the least and I understand the public’s desire, then, to have a written copy of that performance piece which spoke into the grief and fear everyone was experiencing.

 I assume that the demographics that are interested in Kaur and McNish are no different, and because publishers exist to make money (and endure) as much as promote good poetry, there is a profit to be made in that. McNish came to Picador with a ready-made following which translates into guaranteed sales. I can’t, in good faith, knock Picador for taking advantage of McNish’s marketing savvy.  We also cannot assume that an interest in pop poetry and its penchant for clichéd language will negate a person’s potential to venture into other forms that use more technical and creative elements. I certainly began, as a teenager, writing poetry that utilized such overemotional language as “I don’t grieve \ I shatter,”  and have changed so that I now enjoy looking for poetry that challenges me, asks that I spend time with it and get to the root of how it works.   My favorite poet is easily Frank Bidart. But could I have commenced my interest in poetry by reading and engaging with his work – which is unequivocally challenging as it is emotionally visceral? Not a chance; I was not emotionally or intellectually capable. (And I am not arguing that those who prefer accessible poet are not capable. I am stating that I was not capable.) We need to understand poetry can’t speak to one demographic, one level of education or understanding, one prosodic style. There is plenty of room for both McNish and Ashbery and by having an array of “levels” (for lack of a better word), you offer up more variety to the public to draw them into a world that they shut themselves out of because they felt shut out. I would also warn against drawing comparisons between the cult of personality wielded by Trump/Farage and that of the pop poets. I found this to be a very hyperbolic and misguided section of the essay. Trump, in particular, leads a movement bent on spreading misinformation, division, exclusion, prejudice and, at times, violence. To even compare the pernicious nature of Trump’s cult following to that of poets that draw crowds is guilty of “dumbing down” the conversation and depriving it of nuance – the very thing Watts accuses the poetry market of doing. 

As I previous indicated, I do understand the frustration of producing work that challenges a reader only to see it rejected. The business of poetry for most of us, I assume, is a life of “not quite right for us but good luck elsewhere.” Seeing a poet get praised for including poems she wrote at age 8 in her book would rankle even the most welcoming of us. Nonetheless, it is art and it has worth and a purpose. It is up to the individual poet to look at submission guidelines, back issues, and the interests of the editors / judges to make more prudent choices as to where to send work.

 That said, I do think that the article Watts’ wrote is very much needed even though it is a difficult and uncomfortable conversation, especially if prizes like the Ted Hughes prize are going the way of “pop poetry” and away from complex poetry that utilizes the page. 

[1] Robert Phillips, Robert Phillips, The Confessional Poets, (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1973), pp. 1-2

[2] Charles Molesworth, ‘“With Your Own Face On”: The Origins and Consequences of Confessional Poetry,��� in Twentieth Century Literature, 22: 2 (May 1976), 163-178, p 164.

[3] Phillips, p. 16

[riusugoi]

Towards a conceptual lyric- MARJORIE PERLOFF

Note the assumption here that poetic composition is a skill to be applied elsewhere. Tiesha’s “poetic” abilities will transfer to her study of a subject that matters in the real world — criminal justice. Poetry, by contrast, does not matter in the real world and is not something that grown-ups do, except for a few “professionals” like the four invited poets.

-

The uplift theme continues for a few more minutes, honoring poetry as expression, connection, communication — and escape from the drudgery of daily life. Finding your authentic voice, tapping into your unique and truest feelings: this is the poet’s task.

-

Poetry, we surmise from these introductory remarks, is essentially a teenager’s pastime. Writing and reading it can help our young people stay off the streets and express their better selves. But such self-expression, friends, has its limits: when we grow up, we must turn from poetry to things that matter — real things!

-

What does the word “poem” mean to these aspiring poets? What conventions govern their poetic discourse? I find three constants: (1) poetry is assumed to be self-expression — the expression of one’s most private and often painful feelings; (2) poetry is text that is lineated (and when delivered orally, punctuated by pauses at line-ends); and (3) poetry exploits phrasal repetition, as in “eight months I carried” and “sit / in my belly” in the first poem and “Those were the days” and the “I did” and “which” clauses in the second. There is, evidently, no thought of using meter, of counting stresses or syllables. If it is divided into lines, these texts say, it’s poetry; if it’s not, it’s just prose. And repetition — or more properly refrain — underscores the personal feeling of a ubiquitous “I.”

-

When, as the famous anecdote has it, the painter Degas told the poet Mallarmé that he had good ideas for poems but couldn’t find the right words, the latter responded, “It is not with ideas, my dear Degas, that one makes poems. It is with words.”[6] This is neither sophistry nor an unusual doctrine of poetry; it is the recognition that, as Wittgenstein put it, “The limits of language mean the limits of my world,” or “Language is not contiguous to anything else.”[7] Those mysterious feelings and ideas the young poets are told to “express” are not there till they are materialized. As Robert Smithson puts it in a quip cited by Craig Dworkin in “The Fate of Echo,” his preface to Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing (edited with Kenneth Goldsmith): “my sense of language is that it is matter and not ideas — i.e., ‘printed matter.’”[8] And the paradox that both editors pinpoint in their respective prefaces to the anthology is that, in the digital age, the best words for a given occasion may well not be one’s own at all.

-

Or so Goldsmith remarks in his own presentation at the White House workshop, based on his now well-known 2007 manifesto “Uncreative Writing.” Against the usual admonition to “Look in thy heart and write” (Rita Dove has just told the group that “Only you can tell your story. So if you remain true to your own experience, your voice will find you!”), he begins by noting, tongue in cheek, that his own students are penalized for any shred of originality or creativity they might show. As he puts it in the manifesto, “Instead they are rewarded for plagiarism, identity theft, repurposing papers, patchwriting, sampling, plundering and stealing. Not surprisingly they thrive. Suddenly, what they’ve surreptitiously become expert at is brought out in the open and explored in a safe environment, reframed in terms of responsibility instead of recklessness.” Copying, cutting and pasting, downloading, recycling: these activities, Goldsmith argues, will actually teach students more about literature than the seeming “originality” of self-expression.

-

The analogy is to the apprentice painter of the nineteenth century who, before the days of adequate reproduction, diligently copied a Rembrandt or Vermeer for sale to fine arts patrons, thus becoming curiously familiar with the style in question.

-

Choice and framing take precedence over individual verbal invention. Context replaces content as textual determinant.

-

As for formalist abstraction, however “wonderful” the severe negation of the all-black paintings of Ad Reinhardt, Joseph Kosuth argued, they represented a point of no return: “After Reinhardt, the tradition of painting seemed to be in the process of completion, while the tradition of art, now unfettered, had to be re-defined.”[13]

-

this shift to a poetry “more graphic than semantic, more a physically material event than a disembodied or transparent medium for referential communication” (xliii), haunts the May 11 poetry workshop and reading at the White House

-

“Don’t imagine,” Pound warned us, “that a thing will ‘go’ in verse just because it’s too dull to go in prose.”[19]

-

But suppose we regard “poetry” as the language art, parallel to the composition of music, the making of visual objects, or dance? However original the art work may be, there is a discipline to be learned: a discipline that cannot encompass personal effusions like “Belly Song” or “Those Were the Days,” or, for that matter, the magazine verse that now dominates the poetry scene.

-

The poet’s role has become, in the literal sense, that of a word processor, finding how best to absorb, recharge, and redistribute the language that is already there.

-

on the next page Rinne explores the effect of spacing:

insecurity in security

Allow for a single space, and the meaning reverses. Rinne’s seems to me the perfect poem for the age of digital composition, when, as we know, every character and space makes a difference. Mistake a single letter, number, or punctuation mark, and you have altered what the text “says” beyond recognition. Moreover, omission or duplication has consequences: think of paying a bill of $67.50 online and omitting the decimal point. The Bank, as I know from experience, will not let you off easily. And neither, in the case of poetry, will a future audience.

https://jacket2.org/article/towards-conceptual-lyric

[maoliosaphelan-blog]

Notes on theoretical Articles

The Public Sphere: An Encyclopaedia Article (1964)

Author: Jürgen Habermas

-The Public Sphere- the realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed.

-Access is guaranteed to all citizens

- The emergence of a public sphere comes from private individuals assembling to form a public body.

-Citizens behave as a public body when they confer in an unrestricted fashion.

-A Public Sphere provides a guarantee of freedom of assembly and association and the freedom to express and publish their opinions.

-For large public forums this kind of communication requires specific means for transmitting information and influencing those who receive it.

-Examples of the media of a Public Sphere include newspapers, magazines, radio and television.

- A Political Public Sphere is when public discussion deals with objects connected to the activity of the state.

-Public opinion refers to the tasks of criticism and control in which a public body of citizens informally and formally practices the ruling structure organised in the form of a state.

- The Public Sphere mediates between society and state.

-It is through this mediation that citizens were able to fight against the arcane policies of monarchies and make possible the democratic control over state activities.

-The concepts of the Public Sphere and public opinion arose during the 18th century.

-It was during the 18th century that a distinction between ‘opinion’ and ‘public opinion’ was established.

-Public opinion by definition can only come into existence when a reasoning public is presupposed.

-Public discussion about the exercise of political power are both critical in intent and institutionally guaranteed.

-History:

-There is no indication European society of the high middle ages possessed a public sphere as a unique realm distinct from the private sphere.

-However during this period symbols of sovereignty such as the princely seal were deemed public.

-A public representation of power was present.

-The status of the feudal lord was oblivious to ‘public’ and ‘private’ but the individual represented their position publically through their embodiment of an ever present ‘higher’ power.

-The representative public sphere was first linked to feudal authorities (church, princes and nobility), during the process of polarisation.

- By the conclusion of the 28th century they had broken off into public and private sectors.

-The representative public sphere yielded to that new sphere of ‘public authority’ which came into being with the national and territorial states.

- ‘The bourgeois Public Sphere could be understood as the sphere of private individuals assembled into a public body.

-During the 18th century the public body included only the Bourgeois social institutions but towards the end of the century the public body expanded beyond the bounds of the bourgeoisie and lost its social exclusivity.

-Social organisation which deal with the state act in the political public sphere, whether through the agency of political parties or directly in connection with public administration.

-A ‘refeudalization’ of the public sphere occurred due to the interweaving of the public and private realm causing political authorities to assume certain functions in the sphere of commodity exchange and social labour and social powers now assume political functions.

-More often than not in today’s society the process of making public simply serves the arcane policies of special interests; in the form of ‘publicity’ it wins public prestige for people or affairs, thus making them worthy of acclamation in a climate of non-public opinion.

-The central relationship of the public, parties and parliament is affected by this new function of ‘making public’.

-This lean towards the weakening of the public sphere as a principle is opposed by the extension of fundamental rights in the social welfare state.

On the Necessity of Turning oneself into a character

Author: Phililip Lopate

The problem with ‘I’ is that a writer may think that they have said or conveyed more than they actually have with the one syllable.

‘I’ promises engagement with the author in the midst of more stolid language.

It does not give us a clear picture of who is speaking

In order to overcome this, issue a writer must build themselves a character.

The authors character must become knowledgeable enough in their broad outlines to behave ‘believably’, while at the same time as free willed enough to intrigue us with surprises.

The art of characterisation comes down to establishing a pattern of habits and actions for the person you are writing about and introducing variations into the system.

You are teaching the reader what to expect when building a character.

How does one turn themselves into a character?

Acquire some distance from yourself

Begin to take inventory of yourself so that you can present yourself to the reader as a specific, legible character.

Start with your quirks, the idiosyncrasies, stubborn tics, anti-social mannerisms that set you apart from the majority of your fellowmen.

The mistake many essayists make is that they try so hard to be likeable and nice.

Literature is not a place for conformists

The skills of the Kaffeeklatsch- restraining ones expressiveness, rounding out one’s edges, sparing everyone’s feelings- will not work well on the page.

We must dramatise ourselves- positioning the traits that are already in us under the most clearly focused, sharply defined light.

It’s a subtractive process- you need to cut away the inessentials, and highlight just those features of one’s personality that lead to the most intense contradictions or ambivalence.

An essay needs conflict, it will drift into static mode, repeating your initial observation in a self-satisfied way,

A good essayist knows how to select a topic that will generate enough spark in itself, and how to frame the topic so that it will neither be too ambitious nor too slight- so that its scale will be appropriate for satisfying exploration.

What stands in the way of most essays is not technique but psychology

The student essayist must be taught that life remains a mystery even one’s so called boring life.

They must also recognise the charm of the ordinary: that daily life that has nourished some of the most enduring essays.

There are also multiple tonal extremes available to the essayist.

Ethnicity, gender, religion, class, geography, politics- are all strong determinants in the development of character.

When working with these categories we must be bold, and not afraid to mediate on our membership in this or that community, and the degree to which it had informed our writing.

Assume the reader has little or no knowledge of your background even if you have mentioned it in previous essays.

The personal essayist must be like a journalist, who respects the obligation to get in the basic orienting facts- the who, what, when, where and why.

You must sketch yourself to the reader as a person of a certain age, sex, ethnic or religious background, class and region, possessing a set of quirks, foibles, strengths and peculiarities.

You must also solder your relationship with the reader by springing vividly into their mind so that every ‘I’ you use seems somehow characteristic.

The reader must find you amusing and in order for this to happen you must be self-amused.

The first paragraph must suggest your writing will keep the reader engaged.

A lot of essay writer struggle to get past the superficial self-presentation and dive into the wreck of one’s personality with gusto.

‘I’ should represent yourself, not entirely but rather a character drawn from aspects of yourself (less stylised or bold perhaps).

Maintaining one’s dignity should not be a paramount issue in personal essays.

The essay thrives on daring, darting flights of thought.

If you want to reveal someone’s character- actions speak louder than words.

Consciousness can only take us so far in the illumination of character.

By showing our complicity in the world’s stock of sorrow, we convince the reader of our reality and even gain his sympathy.

Character is not just a question of sensibility: there are hard choices to be made when a person is put under pressure.

Personal essays require one to go beyond the self’s quandaries through research or contextualisation, to bring back news of the larger world.

When ‘I’ plays no part in the language of an essay, a firm sense of personality can warm the voice of the impersonal essay narrator.

The process of turning oneself into a character is not a self-absorbed navel gazing, but rather a potential release from narcissism.

The process enables the writer to achieve sufficient distance from themselves in the round; a necessary precondition to transcending the ego.

019. Manifesto (First Provisional, December 2015)

Author: Simon Bowes

- If you get paid for it understand the conditions

- Write as you wish to write

- If you do not get paid understand that you are free to write on your own terms

- If your writing replicates and submits to the demands of journalism, reportage, reviews, or scholarship - to the point where you cannot write as you would wish to - write as you would wish to elsewhere.

-If you do not get paid, understand that you are free to write on your own terms, in whatever form, to whatever purpose.

-Make sure that the purpose is this: to elevate the discourse - to further, to deepen, to enliven and enrich - the dialogue concerning the art form.

-Write as though you are in dialogue with the artists.

-If you do not like or understand something, examine your tastes, aesthetics until you see them for the prejudices that they likely are.

-Often the problem is with you, and not the work in front of you.

-Where the work in front of you does present a problem - aesthetically, ethically, politically - judge how and why this problem emerges.

-What does it seem that the artist is trying to do? Is it worth acknowledging? What difference will an acknowledgement make? Can your acknowledgement - and your critique assist them.

-Write in dialogue with other critics - acknowledge those points of convergence or divergence insider to further that dialogue.

- Where you must object to something - either the work you see or another’s treatment of it  ask yourself what do you think would be just.

- Make clear the context in which you view the work.

- If the artist is a stranger - if you are coming to the work cold - imagine that you have known them several years, and that you owe them a debt.

- The chances are the work you have seen was made in difficult circumstances. If you suspect this, honour it.

- If the work made is made from a position of privilege, is it apparent? If it becomes apparent, acknowledge it, and explore it critically. If necessary, hold the artist to account for it.

- Seek out work by people that aren’t (in whatever sense it might apply) like you.

- Write about past things from the present as a vantage point. Recognise, though, that the present may not be an ideal vantage point.

- Take care over your language. Typos and spelling mistakes are fine, but amend them wherever you can.