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Human Action Ambition, Ability and Achievement Finding and Using the Passion Inside
© Elliot Essman 2005. All rights reserved.
These pages contain the complete text of Human Action, public speaking
trainer Elliot Essman's philosophy of human achievement.
Elliot Essman Public Speaking Training
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Poetry—Controlled Violence
Robert Frost, one of America's most distinguished poets, called poetry “controlled violence.”
Good poetry takes
language, breaks some rules, sets others, and creates an atmosphere of constant
Shock. The “control” Frost is talking about is poetic form. Rather than
limiting a fine human mind, poetic form lets that mind vector itself into other
minds. The “violence” refers to the raw power of poetry. Poetry echos and
re-echos in the human spirit where prose fades away.
Interruption is basic to
poetry. The static brain expects prose: A plus B plus C, etc. It gets something
else and can be wonderfully stimulated by it. A meaningless stream of words can
have some interrupt value now and then, but it is the “creative” confusion of
poetry where you get the real value. Poetry enlarges you, supercharges you. And
a little goes a long way.
You have three possible
levels of involvement with poetry: reading, writing and memorizing. None of
these are expensive. Reading is a matter of finding one good used anthology at
any rummage sale for fifty cents.
And yes, you can write
poetry. You don't have to show it to anybody. Get an old textbook on poetry,
learn about meter and rhyme or blank verse, and then start your poetry. Put
your goals and thoughts into poetry. Versify your shopping list. It's all
valuable word stimulation.
The highest stage in making
poetry your own is memorizing a poem or part of a poem. Then it's yours. You can't
lose it. If a fire or a tornado leaves you without possessions, you've still
got the poem. They cannot steal it from you. They cannot even torture it out of
you. It can shelter you in times of trouble, inspire you in times of
achievement.
Nothing you can put into your
brain is as powerful as a poem that means something to you. You can be sure
that each day, the meaning of the poem will change, grow, ferment like fine
wine. A poem can keep your heart clean. It can keep your brain honest.
Many commentators claim that
what you put into your brain is what you get out of it. They are all partially
correct. Theories about positive thinking and self-programming are all
correct and can be very useful, but Trans-Biological Kinesis demands more of
you. You get more out of your brain than what you put into it. You have
the potential to take two and two and make five. But if you don't put in
valuable ingredients, you may end up with only three.
You have the power of a
modern factory, but more flexibility. Take a steel mill. You put in iron and
coke, and steel eventually comes out. That's about all there is to it. You, the
human, are much less limited than the steel mill. You can put in poetry, and a
brilliant marketing plan comes out. You can put in a brilliant marketing plan,
and a new way of relating to your children comes out. You can start relating to
your children in a new way, and suddenly a poem comes out. As long as you have
Shock, you create ripples that create other ripples that…well, you get the
idea.
Great poetry, great words in
any form (often poetic), are treasure chests filled with Shocks and Tropes
there for the taking. A great novel can have a truly profound effect on you.
Good writing is all over the place. But only great
writing creates trope. I've enjoyed a well-written popular novel now and then,
but these are nearly devoid of trope. They have clever twists that manipulate
readers to keep them reading. If they come to a moral conclusion, it doesn't
expand your horizons very much. Great literature always gives you more, while
good literature gives you more of the same.
How Poetry Works as a Shock
If we disregard Metaphor for
a moment, we find that the spoken word and the written word are nearly exactly
opposite. Non-metaphoric writing comes into our cerebral cortex, our
Neo-Brains, on a single-channel, linear basis, word by word and line by line. Non-metaphoric
spoken words also come into our Neo-Brains, but much of the non-verbal,
emotional meaning of speech (voice quality, for example) washes right into the
Proto-Brain all at once, through any channel it can find.
By contrast, metaphoric
words, whether spoken or written, hit the full brain by every channel.
So great poetry and great
prose are both cerebral and emotional. That's power. Not all of us have
the skill and inspiration to write words that can speak to every human being. That
skill is rare. But we all do have the skill to write words that speak to our
own hearts, because we know ourselves better than any poet could know us. And
since poets have already written the great words, it's a shame if we don't
drink our fill.
Poetry heard or read once has
value as Metaphor, but words that are memorized, kept, cherished, spoken and
re-spoken take on value as Icons. The term “Icon” usually refers to a
visual symbols that serves as a metaphor: one thing meaning another. But Icon
can mean any thing represented by something small (a handful of words, a
person's face) that brings out a meaning that is large. Iconic Fuel is
an important concept we'll be treating in a later chapter.
Exercise: Poetry
Begin writing it. You don't
have to show it to anyone. Pour out your heart and express you feelings in
verse without trying to be too clever.
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Human Action Table of
Contents
Elliot Essman Public Speaking Training
Elliot Essman's Life In The USA
Elliot Essman's Food Writing
Susie Essman's Comedy and Sitcoms
linguix.com
smokefreekids.com
© Elliot Essman 2005. All rights reserved.
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http://www.buildingyourself.com/action/shock7.htm