Dialogic Composition

Humans are by nature creative beings. Within every person, no matter how deeply repressed or alienated, the human life force yearns to be fully realized through some form of creativity. A recent historical manifestation of this can be found in the proliferation of "creative writing" workshops in post industrial societies, especially in the West. This phenomenon has challenged the traditional relationship between writer and reader. In these workshops where individuals write prose, poetry, and more recently creative nonfiction readers have become writers on a scale never before seen. New literary relationships exist where consumers have become producers. Literature is not the only area where this has occurred. One might look at the explosion in musical recording as another similar area now that the technology has become relatively affordable and accessible. These new relationships of production have germinated an energetic dialectical tension between quality and quantity. The authority that quality traditionally has possessed is challenged by this emerging quantity of creative material. This transformation has created an accessibility that transcends racial and class distinctions. In the process, the whole meaning and relevance of "quality" is brought into question. For my purpose here, I am limiting the discussion of the full range of this phenomenon. Others have developed these ideas in much greater depth. I would like to focus on one particular new form with which I have become acquainted through my own experience participating in creative writing workshops. I will attempt to explain it. I call this new form Dialogic Composition.

At first within the tension described above, new forms appear but are not recognized. I propose that Dialogic Composition is one small example of a multitude of emerging new expressive forms across a wide field of new creative aptitudes as yet unnoticed but clearly in existence. Initially, a kind of cognitive dissonance is experienced by the society as a whole in this evolving historical moment. As always, there will be reactionary responses whenever authority is challenged anywhere. The authority of the dominant culture must proclaim hegemony over the realm of legitimacy. Corporate media conglomerates, academia and the publishing/marketing industry are just three immediate examples which work to shape the authority of the dominant culture. They are the guardians of taste and the arbiters of quality. The multitude of new embryonic forms clash with the established forms on the plane of authority. The collective culture as a whole experiences this struggle toward a new stage of development much like Piaget's model for the learning development of a child through stages of cognitive dissonance.

One of the central organizing elements in most creative writing courses is the "critique." Members share their work with others in the group and receive comments and feedback. This can be oral or it can be written. Often, for written feedback, one makes copies of a work they want critiqued. Then the other members provide handwritten comments and corrections on the copy and return them to the author. It is a relationship both old and new. It is a dialogue. On the page each copy now has a new visual appearance of its own. A mixture of both typed text and handwritten script. The content of the author's work is now complemented with the addition of something new from the reader. Taken together in this collaboration a new composition has been created. With the technological capability to mechanically reproduce copies what started, say for example, as one poem in the workshop has been transformed through the fusion of composing and critiquing into multiple compositions each with their own form and content.

But this new form of composition is undefined and lacks the authority to claim to be literature. It's only a "first version," a "draft" or an "edited manuscript." The mindset of both the author and reader within this process is a less self-conscious response. It possesses a kind of innocent anonymity and naiveté. The purpose and motivation is not primarily to procure an audience. It is an embryonic form just beginning to actualize itself. Over time, through a kind of struggle with the authority of established forms, the language and models used to define and realize itself are learned.

In these collections of what I call Dialogic Compositions, I have attempted to give examples of this embryonic form drawn from my own writing experience and participation in numerous creative writing workshops over the years. It is an attempt to give definition and form to a writing experience I see as widely shared by many. Especially in the generations since WWII where "creative writing" has mushroomed on a prolific scale. Along with Dialogic Composition there are no doubt many other forms emerging from this dialectical tension between quality and quantity. Through a process of natural selection certain forms will prevail while others will vanish. I know to some my effort here may seem a bit lofty and pretentious. To others, it may not be that interesting, arguing it encourages mediocrity. Despite this, I hope you find some aesthetic enjoyment and pleasure with these Dialogic Compositions. Before you explore them, I would like to leave you with a quote from Walter Benjamin's, The Author as Producer: "What is lost in height is gained in scope."

Vernard Maxam

2021 Continue reading Dialogical Compositions – Collection 1 →