Essay 3: Limits

In exploring the limits and possibilities of the small plurk forced me to examine exactly what I was doing with the words I was using. Literarily and linguistically the small brandishes a certain kind of power. This power is not automatic in that when one writes as little as possible one does not always say as much as possible. The power is in the hand of the writer, the wielder of language. Naturally, when given a limited amount of space with an excess amount of material, one tries to fit as much as possible into the space. One bends and moves the material, manipulates it to fit; so too with language and plurk. With only 140 characters I was forced to boil down what I wanted to say to the meat of the idea and furnish it with the most effective words.

The plurk exercise that utilized this best was the pataphrase. Though mine was more than 140 characters, the number of characters it required was a small price to pay for what the structure allowed me to convey. Specific and calculated word choice allowed me to give the reader a complete notion of the rise, fall and future of a relationship and the reason behind it. The form of comparison the pataphrase called for allows for the insertion of more metaphoric background to the characters.

The pataphrase helped to open my mind to the possibilities of the small and in turn the possibilities of a limited space like plurk. The poem exercises, particularly the snowball poem really made me examine my writing word for word. Not so much the lack of space but more the regulations on what space I was allotted made the exercise hard. Language had to be examined at a very basic level and I had to decide what words would carry what inflections and ideas to the reader. The choice of words was limited because I had to pick words with a certain number of letters. This was scary because I no longer had complete control. For once I had to allow the language to work itself out on its own. By this I mean I had a limited number of words I could use for each line so I was more or less forced to insert words where I would not necessarily want them. This, however, wound up being beneficial because the words still related and fed of each other’s meanings, just in slightly different ways. In fact the difference was something I came to appreciate: the order of verb in relation to adjective, for example, changed but brought on a whole new meaning, not different, but its own.

The last example I want to examine in terms of working with the small was the youtube poem. Words were used the least in this poem and yet I feel like it said the most, or at least had the potential to. Here we also see not only the tie between technology and language/linguistic expression, but also a use of a pataphoric style of writing. By posting a link to a youtube video the poet was able to make a very surface poem, namely configured by the names of the videos in succession. However, the link opened up another level of expression in that the video itself could be part of the poem, say if the video had a scene or motif relative to the reader personally or the subject material of the poem. The band of the music video or the actor in the skit can also be a reference point to which the poet could tie the reader by some form of relevance either to the reader themselves or to the content of the poem. All this can be done in virtually no words, no characters, just web links. This is a very strong example of utilizing the least amount of space to convey the most amount of material or ideas.

Plurk made me more creative with my writing and more critical. I had to explore all my options (ie web links, videos, words, smiley faces, dancing fruit) to chose how to effectively convey my point. I was not simply telling the reader what I thought but more striving to immerse them in a notion, a complete thought process they could experience rather than read. This examination and experimentation with the small made my writing better simply because I was more efficient. It forced me to refine my technique, to change and adapt my style to the space confines I encountered. Instead of cutting things out, simply opening the space into another level and allowing the reader to follow the path.