When One Becomes the "Powers of Two": The Art of Becoming Your Own Creative Partner – Essay & Resiliency Rap

The Stress Doc explores how his new poem/“Resiliency Rap” – “The Gift of Writing” (below) – evolved from, for him, a novel process of dissatisfaction, honesty, discovery, engagement, frustration and, ultimately, synthesis.  The existential question:  at times, is it possible to be your own creative partner?  And if so, what does it take?  Read on.

When One Becomes the Powers of Two:  The Art of Becoming Your Own Creative Partner –  Essay & Resiliency Rap

Joshua Shenk’s thesis in the thought-provoking Powers of Two:  Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs, (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), is clear:  innovation is powered by the creative tension between individuals in great dyads who are both very much different and very much alike.  Think John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Shenk’s prototypic example.  Both driven musical geniuses (who lost mothers in their teen years), Lennon tempered McCartney’s tendency for soppy romanticism, while McCartney helped soften Lennon’s angry, hard-edge.  Shenk adds: “The heart of creative connection is the felicitous and complementary combination of the familiar and the strange.  These simultaneous extremes generate the deep rapport and energizing friction that defines a creative pair.”  I particularly like this line from Shenk:  We need similarities to give us ballast and differences to make us move.

Alas, what happens when a creative partner is not on the scene?  Are you consigned to creative impotence, or can you improvise?  (I suppose one analogy at hand is settling for self-stimulating pleasures instead of the real thing.  Hey, sometimes second best isn’t so bad; and, when on auto-pilot, the imagination can run a little wild.) 😉  But seriously, I may have discovered another option.

The Pass in the Impasse

Recently, I have been reviewing poems and “Resiliency Raps” ™ penned two and three years ago.  The motive:  I had begun to sharpen my Seussian voice – tackling deep, often complex themes with accessible language, graspable and memorable images, as well as fast, feisty, and fun rhyme schemes.  And, as suspected, a number of the earlier works, especially the longer pieces, are more abstract and less clear, even to the author’s mind.  (Of course, as I continue to age, I do become a little more demented.)

In the early stages of this operational procedure, it dawns on me: in paradoxical fashion, I am in the arena of creative opposition…between my past and present selves! And Shenk’s dyadic proposition may well apply. For as I’m rethinking the early works, it’s not just a matter of substituting a word, phrase or image, here and there. Not only am I seriously streamlining the longer pieces but, within a story-like format, making more tangible and mythical the imagery and references. Bringing an evolved mindset to the remake, I’m separating the poetic – verbal and visual – wheat from chaff; there are original images and ideas waiting to be utilized anew.

A significantly different structure is also emerging.  For example, in the poem immediately below, there are shorter stanzas broken up by a repeating chorus.  In addition, what was a one-time only opening line – I write; therefore, I am – now becomes an opening variation for each poetic section, e.g., I write; therefore, I am memory.  “Memory” becomes the organizing theme for the short segment.

Danger and Opportunity

The challenge of this surgical procedure is as much egotistical as it is operational:  accepting that my earlier work was significantly flawed.  It wasn’t as wonderful as I previously believed.  To my credit, I was experimenting with new poetic formats.  A memorable poem, like a classic city, isn’t built in a day.  For original production, the courage to take an honest look in the mirror, to recognize the circuitous process, perhaps time wandering in the proverbial desert, the opportunity for noodling and trial and error experimentation which allows, finally, the return to familiar territory with a fresh mindset, ready to seek feedback, if not a partnership, is a growing sign of personal-professional maturity that should not be minimized.

Actually, it’s not unlike the “step” work I’m doing.  Areas in my life that seemed “settled,” are presently being exposed as sources of defect and dysfunction (“d and d”).  But instead of being immobilized by feelings of shame, as I may have in the past, or denying the issues altogether, I’m more challenged to wrestle with d and d, in group meetings as well as alone and with one or two fellow “steppers.”  (There’s that “power of two” theme, again.)  So let’s add two “d”s:  new direction and determination!

And “constructive discontent” is often the starting point for creative problem-solving, whatever the generative or innovative domain.  One might say, doing a fierce and fearless, overall life/moral inventory regarding emotional beliefs, behaviors, and relations (the “12-step” forest) is facilitating this poetic reappraisal and risk-taking (of the “word artist” trees).

Naturally, there is risk tearing down an existing structure; one that I’m defining as outdated, of insufficient quality.  Will I be able to construct a worthy replacement?  An image of buildings inadequately designed to withstand earthquake tremors comes to mind.  And after such a trauma, hopefully you are motivated to rebuild with stronger materials and sounder blueprints.  Perhaps I’m in a period of psychic quaking, as it were.  A courageous second look allows for assessing strengths and gaps.  Now there is opportunity for rejuvenating poetic form and function that is both firmer and more fluid.  Hopefully, your work can sway and withstand natural tremors along with human slings and arrows.  (Ultimately, you, reader, will be the building inspector 😉 .)

Closing

A question comes to mind:  do you have other projects (not necessarily involving poetry or even writing, for that matter), that might warrant a second look?  Are you ready to explore the “Powers of Two,” ideally with a partner?  But if one isn’t on the horizon, can you turn your former self or an old work into a provocative antagonist, perhaps an arena where thesis and antithesis do battle.  It just may be time for new creative synthesis.  To good adventures.  MG

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Gift of Writing

I write; therefore, I am

Hey, Rene, ** this is no scam

It’s in the stars of this Aries ram.

Head in the clouds; mind on the lam

Still head-butting that nightmare exam.

I write; therefore, I am memory

Ghost voices smolder in purgatory

Smoke signal secrets of the family:

That “don’t talk, don’t trust, don’t feel” litany

May one scratch history from jaws of mystery?

Writing, Writing

The art of inner fighting

Writing, Writing

Are you still deciding?

I write; therefore, I have a brain

Word Legos helps design the sane

Till mind meets wall…there’s no more to gain

But REM sleep drama for all the pain.

Red morning eyes know the Sisyphus ** strain:

It’s in your blood…Up the mountain again!

I write; therefore, I have a role

9-5…just not how I roll.

Why do they scoff?  Some try to cajole…

Don’t make me laugh: “Just set a goal.”

For fiery dreams that still burn a hole

Plug in…compose:  lay bare Shadow Soul.

Writing, Writing

A knack for in-sighting

Writing, Writing

No more closet hiding.

I write; therefore, I am not null

All in my head; perhaps full of bull?

Whatever is said, at least I’m not dull.

Seuss-lite illumes the jet-black tunnel…

Rising from ashes – a Phoenix role model:

A keyboard with wings – new mythic seagull.

I write; therefore, I have an image

Is it true vision or just a mirage?

Trapped in a maze or safe passage for rage?

But one way to know…leap to the stage!

Who knows where you’ll go on a blank screen or page!

Writing, Writing

When spirit starts igniting

Writing, Writing

No more simply gliding.

Writing, Writing

Like thunder and lightning

Writing, Writing

On Pegasus **…start riding.

**  Rene Descartes (1596–1650), French philosopher, mathematician, and man of science. He concluded that everything was open to doubt except conscious experience and existence as a necessary condition of this: “Cogito, ergo sum” (I think, therefore I am).  In mathematics, he developed the use of coordinates to locate a point in two or three dimensions. The Cartesian coordinate system is named in his honor. (Oxford Dictionaries)

**  In Greek mythology Sisyphus was the king of Ephyra (now known as Corinth). He was punished for his self-aggrandizing craftiness and deceitfulness by being forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it come back to hit him, repeating this action for eternity. Through the classical influence on modern culture, tasks that are both laborious and futile are therefore described as Sisyphean.  (Wikipedia)

** Pegasus, in Greek mythology, a winged horse that sprang from the blood of the Gorgon Medusa as she was beheaded by the hero Perseus. With Athena’s (or Poseidon’s) help, another Greek hero, Bellerophon, captured Pegasus and rode him first in his fight with the Chimera and later while he was taking vengeance on Stheneboea (Anteia), who had falsely accused Bellerophon. Subsequently Bellerophon attempted to fly with Pegasus to heaven but was unseated and killed or, by some accounts, lamed. The winged horse became a constellation and the servant of Zeus. The spring Hippocrene on Mount Helicon was believed to have been created when the hoof of Pegasus struck a rock.

In late antiquity, Pegasus’s soaring flight was interpreted as an allegory of the soul’s immortality; in modern times, it has been regarded as a symbol of poetic inspiration.  (Encyclopedia Britannica).

© Mark Gorkin  2017

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Mark Gorkin, MSW, LICSW, "The Stress Doc" ™, a nationally acclaimed speaker -- on stress & burnout, performance-leadership and captivating communication -- as well as recognized authour, and "Psychohumorist" ™.  Mark is a founding partner and Stress Resilience and Trauma Debriefing Consultant for the Nepali Diaspora Behavioral Health & Wellness Initiative and is a current Leadership Coach/Training Consultant for the international Embry-Riddle Aeronautics University at the Daytona, FL headquarters. A former Stress and Violence Prevention Consultant for the US Postal Service, he has led numerous Pre-Deployment Stress Resilience-Humor-Team Building Retreats for the US Army. Presently Mark does Critical Incident Debriefing for organizational/corporate clients of Business Health Services. The Doc is the author of Practice Safe Stress, The Four Faces of Anger, and Preserving Human Touch in a High-Tech World. Mark’s award-winning, USA Today Online "HotSite" – www.stressdoc.com – was called a "workplace resource" by National Public Radio (NPR). For more info, email: stressdoc@aol.com.