On Having a Sharp Tongue
I have been thinking lately about the sometimes inciting nature of words. I’ve been thinking about writers that use sharp words and how I have for a long time now been attracted to such brazen iconoclasts. I’ve been thinking about what should be said and what shouldn’t; what is the fine line of insult? Is worrying about the probability of someone taking something personally part of the duty of the writer? Or is the writer to put out questions no matter the cost, to stir things up, to rattle the dust?
This is a very fragile realm to me. The observations of my words through the reflections of other’s reactions provides some insight as to how I’m faring. Tactics of attention-getting should be used consciously; what can be stirred in people should be handled with care. We are each loaded with so many experiences that can be triggered by a single fleeting image, smell, place, and even the written word. It is impossible to predict the myriad of reactions. And so, I guess that is why I do not tip-toe but at times charge in with my “guns blazing.”
Yet, I do not want to insult. I don’t want to cause bad feelings and bitter reactions. Does it have to be par for the course? I’m young; I’m learning. I once read an interview with a contemporary writer who said that his first attempts at writing were criticism of authors and that was part of his developing process. Does one have to begin with the negative to reach the positive? It’s all fumbling in the dark, broken between with slats of burning light.
I do know that in my “voice” there is a sharp tongue. I do know I never mean anything personal, even if I use a name. I know that I have a tender idealism, very easily broken, that I have taken as my responsibility to protect. If it is budged just a bit, the fierce mother comes roaring out.
I’ve been thinking about these things because of recent comments of reactions. The most notable was an email this morning in defense of the here ill-reputed Brenda Venus. The reader said I did not have a heart, that my writing could be bought and sold, that I was full of “I” and “E.G.O.” and many other insulting things. On the subject of Brenda Venus he touched very lightly, and as I understood, I should like her because Henry Miller first loved her, which is to say everyone should like everyone and everyone should like everything because God first loved us.
But I am not a saint and neither do I want to be.
Now thinking, it was not Brenda Venus he was defending, but some vague notion that became twisted up into a bundle. Because I had the nerve to question the above mentioned woman’s motives? I don’t know. I don’t get it.
The only obligation we are given in life is the up-keep of our beating organ. “It is not my concern if you like these words or not,” pass on, pass over, it’s all the same to me. I’m going to keep writing and writing, whether or not I can harness my sharp tongue. So no apologies and nothing personal! And think nothing of the I, I, I, I, I!
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