So, here’s an interesting question for us, given the topic of this year’s festival, cross-cultural experience. Stanley Fish writes a blog for the NY Times, and lately he has been discussing the teaching of writing.
( http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/what-should-colleges-teach-part-3/)
One issue he has addressed is the imposition of traditional grammar and writing forms on a writer’s own patterns and varieties of language. The writers speaking this year are all ‘from away’, as we say in Maine. Because of their cross-cultural experience, they have to find a balance between keeping their special, divergent view and making what they have to say comprehensible to the rest of us. Convention dictates that certain forms must be followed, and yet, as we said before, one of the reasons we read is to learn about things that are unfamiliar. How do we know when the application of these rules is so heavy handed that the originality will be crushed? What is it like for writers trying to convey their individual experience and yet make their work something readers can relate to? How do publishers judge when that balance is reached?
And, maybe most important for us readers, how much are we willing to stretch in order to learn, and even enjoy something new?
Looking through the list of people presenting it is obvious we will have a chance to confront this issue for ourselves at the festival, and probably to hear what these writer’s have to say about finding their own forms.
Scarlett’s David
