Clichés come into existence through certain ideas or concepts being so prevalent, so omnipresent, so important, that they leave the realm of idea and become fact: too obvious to state. We are all acquainted with them. Instantly, we grasp meanings in seconds through phrases which may or may make sense semantically. Unfortunately, clichés are trite. They are platitudes. They say nothing new and smack of unoriginality. And for a writer who is concerned, on the one hand, with the big issues (life, death, time, meaning, etc.) and with originality/individuality on the other, these clichés become a barrier. They make it nearly impossible to access the issues I want to address without wading through the linguistic mud of the cliché. And I always end up looking dirty when I arrive, the now dried-mud all over me. This distracts me when I come to approach the issue from another angle – the unique position that is my own.
I’ve been wrangling with this issue for a long time – and not just myself, but all writers and almost certainly all people. It’s a conundrum, trying to find a way to talk about things without sounding as if you’re unoriginal, even if you do have interesting and unique things to say. Much like the ‘anxiety of influence’ that poets feel when they realise that the main issues have been described incredibly by the likes of Keats, Shakespeare and Byron, they wonder what they can possibly say. But it’s not that they don’t have things to say: it’s only that they want to release their shackles and tap into the poetic lifeblood that is coursing through their veins – but trying to avoid all the usual phrases and sayings.
It’s for that reason that I stopped writing poetry for a very long time.
But now I have managing to bypass this anxiety by ignoring this conscious filter, this anxiety, and allowing the blood to flow straight from my veins onto the page: there is a point at which the things one has to say becomes more important than any reception of them. If I have something to say, I utterly have to say it. It no longer matters to me whether Shakespeare has said something similar, or said it better. I simply have to say it. If that means writing without verse, without rhyme, or even clumsily at times, then so be it.
Passion is more important to me now than technical mastery. I allow what technical skills and intuitive writing ability I have to shape those things that literally burst from me. If I keep them in, I quite literally lose my mind and become a very, very strange bundle of emotion that loses all self-control. I become thoroughly disorientated. It strikes me that not everyone has the passion I have for what I do. And of all the attempts that have been made to describe what it is about me that is ‘different’, all have failed – myself included. Passion seems to be a very pertinent word, and so I’m going to use that as a benchmark. Whatever it is I do – and I’m aware of the irony involved in the fact that a writer can’t even come close to describing some of the most important facets of his character – I am passionate about it.
Through use of this handle, or key, as it were, I have been able to not only wrangle with the anxiety of influence – I have been able to pin it to the ground and finish it off. I have banished it from my life and I spend almost every night finding myself turning some music to the limits of volume, pulling out a pad and a pen and writing furiously until I find that some ten or more pages later, I have a poem in at least seven parts. And contrary to the past, I find that I have opened up more avenues for exploration for the future when I have finished, rather than feeling somewhat exhausted. I feel fulfilled in the same sense I always have done – proud – but I start the countdown until the next time I get to unleash all my thoughts and passion. Often this is about twenty seconds later, when I start writing another poem.
The key to all of this, of course, is because the cliché has been killed.
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Rather, the fear of the cliché has been overcome.
And when one fear has been overcome, that usually signals that whoever has overcome the fear has gained a lot of strength – and a lot of other fears will be conquered either in tandem or in the near future. I can certainly attest to that.
‘Cliché killing’ isn’t simply an empty phrase (but god forbid it ever came a cliché in the future, I don’t think I could handle that irony), though nor is it a catchphrase. It’s simply my way of labelling this newest phase of my career (and life, thanks to the events of this year, especially a few vital successful conquests). It’s my way of reminding myself that my passion for poetry, for prose, for writing shouldn’t be reduced by my appreciation of the greats – it should be redoubled, and I should write without anxiety.
I know for a fact that Shakespeare (replace with any great writer) wasn’t worried about living up to some other standard when he was writing. He simply wrote because he had to – it would have been dangerous to his health not to.
And there is another barrier which is overcome when this passion is tapped into: you stop caring what people think.
I have always been of the mind-set that, if I am able to predict how people will react (which I do seem able to do, for whatever reason), then it is my fault if I choose to write something I know will offend people, even if I truly feel it. The number of times I have paused to write something inflammatory and then stopped myself for this very reason is almost unbelievable.
This is where, precisely, cliché-killing becomes more than words and becomes almost a poetic tattoo. It signals my complete disregard for what others think: critics or dissenters.
(‘Think’ here meaning opinion – a technical critique of whatever I say is always valuable, and someone who takes the time to explore the syntax, semantics of my writing — or otherwise linguistically explore what I have written — is more than entitled to critique my work. I’m referring, here, to those who take a shallow ‘I think that’s bad’ view. Unthinking types.)
Whilst there is a social function I still need to perform as ‘Luke Labern’, the writer Luke Labern has very defined and, perhaps, controversial views and as such, I need to distinguish between the two. So whilst I will continue to bite my tongue – like we all must – to keep my social character, or persona, going, when it comes to writing, this will no longer be the case.
To indicate this, I will be referring to my poetic alter-ego as something different. He is a person who does not care what other people thinks: because he lives in the realm of the mind; in words and in thought. No one and nothing can enter or penetrate his philosophical space. Criticism falls deafly on his ears. In reality, he is dis-engendered. All social etiquette is irrelevant to him: all that exists are the words he writes. The reader can converse with him in the privacy of their mind, and they can leave the text whenever they wish.
He will live longer than Luke Labern, because his words will remain long after the corpse of Luke Labern has been restored to its constituent parts and has decayed away into other things. The thoughts of this being, this writer, this poet, will last as long as there is another sentient being alive able to comprehend what has been said. I assume this is a finite time, but either way: he will have a far greater influence than Luke Labern ever will. And he is infinitely braver than him.
The person who wrote this is Luke Labern. The person who types the characters or spills ink on the page is Luke Labern – but the thoughts that are translated into writing are someone else’s. And this being has never had a name: for a long time I thought they were the same person. But now that Luke Labern has managed to emancipate his social function from his ideologies as a writer, the two have been dissociated. The writer of the words is Luke Labern. The poet who feels those things, who lives his life as a borderline martyr who is yet to be tested has a different name. So from my writing hence: whenever you see a new, higher layer of honesty, of intensity, of perceptiveness, know that this stems from a bravery that Luke Labern isn’t able to display for a variety of reasons (because of his human ties). Know that it comes from a rejection of anxiety; from a reject of fear, and from a rejection of intimidation of any kind. It arises solely by negating the influence of anyone else in the world but the poet himself.
The writer’s name – the translator’s name — is Luke Labern.
The poet’s name is the Cliché-Killer.
