why poets are not method writers.

 

so here's the thing: i do not watch the news on television. i read the news. i read the news because there is no moving pictures of wars and death to go along with the words of wars and death. this is far easier for me to synthesize. i have always been this way.

but last night, at work, i had to watch the news. i had to watch obama's serious face address the syrian dictatorship and i got to watch the very important news anchor's mouth move while he talked about how this is the very first time in history that syria has admitted to having chemical and biological weapons and that they are threatening to use these weapons against all "aggressive foreign powers."

this was the 6:30 news.

then, i had to method write quiz questions based on the news for the general american public to test the general american psyche in relation to retention of television programming. i had to write the multiple choice answers, including the fakes. writing fakes for warfare felt awful. coming up with different reasons to go to war made my stomach hurt.

but after the syria segment, there was this nuclear submarine some man set on fire in maine and he set it on fire because he was anxious and wanted to get off work early. and i had to hear the very important news anchor say this, with a subtle timbre in his voice, like just that tone was a punchline to a world famous joke. like he was supposed to communicate this modern american joke without saying it out loud, like he too was testing the general american psyche.

and i had to write a quiz question and a fake on that too. only the fakes did not seem as audacious as the answer, so there was no balance

and my news quiz show questions were a damn mess. really. it was like bombshells all over the page. everything i had learned in two weeks of learning how to method write these questions was completely gone from my brain i felt like i could literally feel my brain mushing up getting stupid

so i made all my fakes match the same rhythm as the true answer because i thought that could carry the weight, i thought the rhythm of the words could hide the truth in the fakes, but the patterns were not supposed to be there,

my patterns were revised to men looking for cookbooks and men dropping binoculars and other things this very nice editor did to make my questions accessible to the general american psyche

then i had to write quiz questions on a staged tow truck show where these very overweight american men run around in pink shirts with the sleeves rolled up like punky brewster and the method is the exact same as the news. it is the same thing. 

then i really did not get it. 

then i really could not understand what the hell i was doing.

so i wrote anything as fast as i could. and it was all terrible and there was nothing too it and it was all wrong because it had no methodology it just read PLEASE LET ME OUT.

then i came home at 4a and had nightmares about the news and the important news anchor and just how scary the world is and how those jokes and good ideas arent funny anymore.