Free Verse Notebook #1: Thoughts from the Plane on Grotesque vs. Lighthearted Fiction

Confession time: sometimes, I write free verse poetry. 

G. K. Chesterton would not be proud.

But the fact is, sometimes I look back at the free verse I keep on the "notes" app of my phone and think, "Huh. That's the clearest I've ever articulated such-and-such idea that I've often wanted to write an essay on."

So here is one from November of 2022, which ended up as a response to Flannery O'Connor. And as a defense of my own work in progress, evidently. 

(Not that I was reading Flannery O'Connor at the time. What I had read the day before was Sam's post on Flannery O'Connor. I now see that I never actually commented on this lovely post. But evidently I was thinking about it.) (Or maybe I saw the title and did the actual reading of it later?) (It's a great post, by the way. Way more scholarly and well-thought-out than this, which is merely a subconscious feeling put into stream-of-consciousness, and more commentary on Serious Fiction in general than it is on Flannery O'Connor in particular. If that makes sense.) 

Anywho. 

Here are my thoughts from the plane.

(Also: I love the Bronx. The reference to it below isn't meant to be disparaging. The Bronx is just...alive and real and HAPPENING in a raw, brutally honest way that much of America doesn't get to experience. It's holy ground. But those are thoughts for another day.) 

___

I can never write on the plane,
Nor can I on the train;
There's too much going on, 
Too much of the world on view,
Too much human pain
And joy
And love
And mirth
And sleep
And stress
And--

Flannery!
I know you think 
Fiction should show life as it is
Without idealization
Emphasizing the grotesque.
But here's what I think:
Life almost never makes sense to us
And the grotesque is always in sight
Especially if you live in a place like the Bronx;
And, well, maybe what I'm writing
Isn't literature.
Maybe it's just a story
For children to read together and children at heart,
To get their mind off their troubles for awhile,
Like the plays in Little Women: it gave
them something to do with their time
which they might otherwise have wasted.
It's just a game I guess;
I admit it's a game above all;
And Flannery, I can't stand on a shelf with you.

But there's a place for that, too, isn't there?
Of course there is.
On the seventh day, God rested.
It's okay to rest in a story
Every seven days or so.
Especially if, in the story, the world makes sense to us--
But not the people it's happening to.
It gives me hope, I think,
To know that I am the character in my story and not the reader,
Much less the writer;
To know that if my life does not make sense to me
That's perfectly okay--
Because it does make sense
to Someone. 

___

Anywho. 

Do you ever write free verse? And do you like Flannery O'Connor? And do you have Feelings about the value of lighthearted stories? Chat with me. 

Love and prayers,

Megan the Nutmeg