Givens

[david mckay]

As someone utterly new and as a non-practitioner I have been trying to
decode the conversation about "givens" -- so I bring my context to the
interpretative endeavour.

I write. Mostly short fiction and non-fiction and I belong to a creative
writing circle where we discuss our writing in particular and also
writing in general. A discussion that occurs in creative writing circles
on and off is the discussion of poetry. There are advocates of vers
libre (free verse) and there are advocates of forms.

Free verse advocates find ancient forms constrictive of their creativity
and advocates of forms find the restrictions to be opportunities for
creativity. I myself, when I write poetry, prefer blank verse. There are
some restrictions, (iambic pentameter) but very few (its unrhymed) and
many who don't know I'm using it will assume its vers libre. In effect
its a form with the appearance of non-form -- minimal restriction but
with enough limitations to provide that goad and direction to create.

I don't know how helpful this analogy is. But I see potential
connections here. And I know from my counselling work in the past that
the right metaphor can sometimes be a useful way forward.

--
David William McKay

My mother told me, she said, "Elwood, to make it in this world you either have to be oh, so clever or oh, so pleasant." Well, for years I was clever; I recommend pleasant.

-- Elwood P. Dowd (Jimmy Stewart) in the film Harvey (1950)

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