Stream
I don't get Stream of Consciousness poetry. I've really struggled with this challenge and I know that it's ended but I just wanted to have a go at what I think stream of consciousness is because I don't understand how it works and so, here's me trying to explain in a disingenuous, slightly facetious way what I think stream of consciousness is all about in a quiet moment while I was uninterrupted. Because I could.
I don't know how to write stream of consciousness poetry because stream of consciousness to me just means writing what comes into your head as you are thinking it and stream implies that this should be continuous, like a flow that just keeps going with no breaks or stops or anything and I have real trouble with this because I dislike the disorder and where it puts me. For me, poems have form and this is formless and not poetic and not anything really other than the ramblings of me, on my computer on a wet, grey day in semi-rural England, having just eaten a really scrummy lunch of paoched egg on toast on seeded bread. I love seeded bread, I had it for breakfast as well although it was with butter and marmalade and it was scrum - diddly - umptious. I don't know why I'm writing about that. Yes, I do. It's because this is stream of consciousness and that is what this is and it's not very interesting is it? And this is why I'm struggling, because I've read loads of other people's stuff and they all read really well about cats and rhythms and other cerebral stuff but I try and I just can't do it because it just doesn't feel real for me to construct something like that. That's the problem. I can't reconcile the idea of a stream with something that has form. Even all the punctuation that I'm putting in is making my skin itch because it's providing form and my thoughts aren't punctuated. I don't have cartoon bubbles appearing in my head to tell me how something should be said: where the stresses should go or whether it's funny or not. They just are and they just come and then I just go with whatever my brain conjured up in that moment and thinking about that, that's pretty cool isn't it because there's all this electrical process going on (I don't really know how my brain works - Gerard, enlighten me please) in this big pink thing, or is it grey? Poirot talks about little grey cells. I don't know. Anyway, this isn't a medical dissertation so I suppose it doesn't really matter, although I do like to be as accurate as I can. I'll await Gerard's advices. That's Gerard on here, Vocal. I've got to hope he reads this now. I don't know where I was. I've gone down the rabbit-hole, Alice-style. What am I doing? This is just rambling. And yet, I feel this is more true to the brief. I feel like this is a stream, even though it's a fucking awful one but looking at it on the page, it is just me, telling you my thoughts as they come and unfiltering it and this looks like some sort of arty shite which someone would applaud for its originality even though it is banal and so uninteresting. I'm having a James Joyce Ulysses or more likely Emperor's New Clothes moment here. I mean, who are you to compare yourself to James Joyce? I mean, that's a bit up yourself. You know, that's reminded me of Virginia Woolf too and wasn't she one for stream-of-consciousness? I seem to remember that from my English degree, many moons ago. We went to my old university the other day and I barely recognised it. I had this image of it in my head and it just wasn't that anymore. It made me feel old but not sad because if there's one thing that I know about living, it's that everything changes. But you! Oh no, now I've got Take That in my head and I've still not got the ironing done and now I've been interrupted by TikTok playing in the background on my son's phone.
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Comments (15)
Yeah, this would be how stream of consciousness actually is! Huge chunks of uninterrupted thoughts, where tangents arrive and depart. "I'm having a James Joyce Ulysses or more likely Emperor's New Clothes moment here. "- cracked me up. I really, really dislike poetry or writing without some recognisable form, and feel that it's like looking at modern art in a museum...I had to at least get rhyme in mine, so yours is definitely a truer version of unfiltered thoughts!
That's purebred stream of consciousness. I'm with you.....the thought of such writing really discombobulates me and the process of writing. I think you did exceptionally, however.
Probably the most pure stream of consciousness piece I’ve seen! These are beyond me, but I certainly enjoyed yours
I like the way you let yourself experiment and explore the idea as a way of familiarizing yourself with it!! This was clever and gave me a lot o food for thought when it comes to stream of consciousness poetry... 🤔
Take that and James Joyce! This was fab!
Mmmm, now I want some toast too, hehehehe. I feel you nailed this stream of consciousness thingy!
I haven't had marmalade in ages. A must on my grocery shopping list. And the Emporer's New Clothes bit gave me quite the chuckle. I entered one poem in the challenge. It was written a few months ago and I really had no idea where it belonged, if anywhere, and then Vocal came a calling with the Streams of Consciousness Challenge, and I thought, what the heck, why not! This was quite enjoyable for me as my time here is limited and certainly doesn't allow me to participate as much as I would like. 😊
Love it!🥰 I got startled and needed to reread: “ having just eaten a really scrummy lunch of paoched egg on toast on seeded bread. I love seeded bread, I had it for breakfast as well although it was with butter and marmalade and it was scrum - diddly - umptious.” I thought you had marmalade with poached eggs… together 😵💫🤣
A more precise term for stream-of-consciousness poetry--mindless rambling.
This is precisely how I feel about stream of consciousness poetry, Rachel. And as LC wrote today, it’s impossible anyway, since thoughts are faster than our capacity to write! I cannot write without processing as I write in any event. And poached eggs on seeded toast are scrumptious! Even though I once taught Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, I think that entire school of modernism is more irritating than enlightening as an art form.
I think this is perfect. You may not like writing stream of Consciousness, but it worked.
Wonderful, Rachel, I enjoyed this glimpse into your thinking.
Kerouac was another example of a famous stream of consciousness writer. The stream is consciousness. The bed that it wear into the earth is the poem that holds it, the form it takes, or makes. The manner in which stalactites and stalagmites form might also be an apt analogy. The stream is a long term aggregation of thoughts that not only happen in the moment, but which were destined to come out in that moment. Most of my poetry is stream of cosciousness, or close to it, because I find myself having to revise much less now than earlier in my life. Prose, however, I like to treat like Mr. Miyagi taught Danielson to snip at the bonzai trees in "The Karate Kid". In any event, I took that, and I liked it, Rachel! Well-wrought!
I struggled to get started on Unfiltered for the same reasons. It helps a bit that my thoughts do tend to be a bit choppy, but there's very little rhyme or rhythm to it. Honestly, the ones that rhyme and have a poetic rhythm... That's not a stream of consciousness imo, and dollars to doughnuts it's not unfiltered.
This was strangely enchanting and better than some "journals". Honestly, I get it. I probably went left of field and it feels like my wheelhouse, but then I rarely stick true to forms unless it's the strict ones...so who knows? I mean. I would sit down with an idea of what I wanted to say and then find a starting point and see where it went. Then, edited it somewhat so it wasn't shite. Well done on this.