Posted by Adam on January 28, 2000, at 17:50:10
In reply to Re: artists and depression (discussion fodder), posted by Cass on January 28, 2000, at 16:14:47
I used to write poetry too, when I was in my late teens and early twenties. Some of it was pretty good, most of it stank. Anyway, I also lost my taste for it for years, but after selegiline really kicked in, I found I felt like writing a couple things down. I even made up a couple little tunes on my guitar, which I also used to do all the time, and then forgot about during my mid-to-late twenties. It's interesting: what I used to write for poetry could sometimes be pretty horrifying in its intensity and despair. My songs (none of them very complex, but, y'know, listenable) were all very sad minor key kind of compositions, or very rough and dissonant. Some people did seem to like them, though.
The latest poem I wrote was kind of a love poem, and the latest song, though having a definite wistful quality that I imagine will be a signature of mine forever, is certainly more upbeat than anything I ever wrote before. And it's also better than anything I wrote before melodically. But it seems to be more bland and conventional.I don't know. I think my little amateur art projects have probably lost some of their punch, and, to damn with faint praise, are now probably more "pleasant" than anything, if one were inclined to complement them at all. But I still like to create things, when the mood takes me. It doesn't seem that antidepressants have killed my creativity (as some say they will), but the things I create do lack the old angst, and, perhaps, most of the old power.
Why is angst so fashionable? Why do euthymics find it so alluring to watch suicidal artists writhe in agony (å la Kurt Kobain, for instance, the most popular pop icon of the early 90s)?
I'll never be an Anne Sexton, that's for sure. I wish I could write like that. But sometimes I wonder...I'm grateful for her art, her sadness spoke to me, but what did it get her, in the end? Though many feel her return to writing later in life prolonged it, she was vaunted laregely for her eloquent expressions of dissatisfaction and despair. The world is better for her contribution to it, but she died as she shouldn't have. Was she a sacrifice?
poster:Adam
thread:19731
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000128/msgs/19915.html