Jealousy as Inspiration

I've always had two litmus tests for gauging the excellence of someone else's writing.

One is is when I read a story and think to myself, "I wish I'd written that."

But a second, and more dismaying outcome is when I read and then groan, "God, I wish I could have written that."

Stories that meet that second criteria I am most likely to study; not just read, but sometimes copy out, word for word. I learned to write Wall Street Journal nut grafs that way. I got onto the cover of the Washington Post Magazine that way by copying the leads of other writers' centerpieces. I learned some of what I know about fiction that way, by typing out an entire short story, "The Beginning of Grief," by Larry Woiwode, a North Dakota poet and novelist whose attention to emotional detail takes you deep inside another's world.

I consider these exercises "modeling lessons." and not, a case of "you imitate the best and the rest you memorize," as Joni Mitchell scornfully describes an emotionally challenged lover in her song "A Woman of Heart and Mind."

Literary modeling has a long and distinguished lineage, not unlike the way visual artists copy the Masters. But I've always felt a bit self-conscious about it. Write your own stuff, buddy!

So it was with great excitement I heard Billy Collins, the former U.S. poet laureate, discussing the role of imitation in an interview on my local NPR station. He took it one emotional step further:

It came in this exchange with interviewer Susan Giles Wantuck who asked Collins:

"Who inspires you?"

Collins replied:

"Because I’ve been teaching so long it’s really hard to tease out the influences. But when I first read John Donne, the English metaphysical poet, I read a poem of his called “The Flea” when I was in college. Prior to that I had experiences of literary appreciation and I was even impressed by some of the literature I was reading.

"But this was the first time that I felt a feeling of jealousy for this poem. I didn’t want to be me anymore; I wanted to be John Donne. I felt really inadequate. I thought I could never, ever write a poem like that but if I could, having written that one poem I could just check out having done that.

"I think jealousy is a kind of emotional inspiration because then you begin learning from -- if you don’t just get completely paralyzed with despair and frustration -- the next step is to start imitating the people who make you jealous."

Wow! So our muses may, in part, be jealous creatures who revel in our feelings of inadequacy, and feed our desire to replace ours creative selves with someone better or smarter or more gifted.

Strangely, I find it comforting, the notion that this gnawing desire to be someone else can fuel devotion to our work, and with may come greater skill.

In the interview, Collins also vividly describes a more powerful motivation to write than envy:

"The real thrill is composition," Collins said. "To be kind of down on your hands and knees with the language at really close range in the midst of a poem that is carrying you in some direction that you can't foresee... It's that sense of ongoing discovery that makes composition really thrilling and that's the pleasure and that's why I write. "

I recommend listening to the entire interview, which features Collins readng a poem, "The day after my death," and discussing its composition).

Collins is in Florida this week to keynote at the Florida Suncoast Writers' Conference. My wife and writing partner, Kathy Fair, and I are also scheduled to appear at the conference. I hope I get close enough to thank him for teaching me the the creative power of jealousy.

Comments

[Tom Spalding]

Chip! Glad you are blogging. But you know what's even better than blogging? Something i call blog-hogging. Why restrict your opinion to a single website when you can peruse others and leave your relatively anonymous opinions on a variety of blogging sites? Then, and I'm speaking generally here, you are less likely to run afoul of your employer. Hey, and if you avoid running afoul of your employer, you are less likely to be Romenesko'd! I'd say more ... but it's off to the next interesting blog site!

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Good to see this blogs..the writing style is very good..

[Carla Jean]

I saw Billy Collins speak in Hoover, Ala., last night. For years, I've had a few sentences he spoke about writing scrawled on a scrap of paper. I've kept it taped to my computer monitor at work, even as I've moved from job to job. When I heard he was coming, I was thrilled. And the reading last night was as wonderful as I'd hoped.

But for the life of me, I couldn't remember where I found that quote, or even the context of the conversation. (I carried this paper around for years before I read any of Collins' poetry.) So this morning I hopped on Google to do a little investigating, and I landed back here.

Indirectly, then, your blog has been a source of inspiration for me for years! When I've worked difficult jobs or had difficult moments at great jobs--or simply when I have been on hands and knees with the language, myself--I've revisited these words. So thank you for sharing.

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