Library, Monday

[intotheout]

Tip was still trying to work out what big flaw in her writing she was going to try to destroy for this week's creative writing assignment. Maybe she should do something that didn't involve robots?

But robots were cool.

She found a couple writing manuals in the stacks and flipped through those for awhile. One was a whole big thing about birds, which she guessed worked as a metaphor, but it still seemed kind of weird to Tip. Another one had a whole big thing about how adverbs were the devil.

Tip was starting to think that professional writers were kind of full of crap.

[open!]

Comments

[intotheout]

"Pretty much no one reads poetry where I'm from. They'll listen to it, like at a slam or in hip hop, but reading it is the realm of, like, uber-geekdom."

[justice_undone]

"...uber-geekdom?"

[intotheout]

"Like . . . extra obsessed with something most people don't bother with. You have to be really into it to be into it, you know?"

[justice_undone]

"Oh! I understand."

Almost very culture had people like that. A similar thing had jokingly been said about her - as Justice of Toren - which had been funny because ships weren't generally expected to take such serious interest in things like music.

"Like collecting songs?"

[intotheout]

"Yeah, kinda. Though loads of people are into music without being totally obsessed with it. I think the people who are super into music call themselves 'audiophiles'."

[justice_undone]

"I see." Breq considered this. "Is there a reason there is very little poetry written here?"

[intotheout]

Tip shrugged. "It's just not really in fashion, I guess. It can be kind of . . . impenetrable."

[justice_undone]

"It can?" Breq asked. "In that case, isn't that true of every kind of art?"

[intotheout]

"Oh yeah, totally. There's lots of people who say they don't 'get' visual art, too. But I think with poetry, there's this idea that, like, none of it is accessible, you know? At least with painting, you might not get abstract stuff, but portraits are pretty easy. Or with music, there's lots of complexity that most people never hear, but they can still sing along with the lyrics and dance to the beat. With poetry, in my culture at least, you don't really get that."

[justice_undone]

"But lyrics are poetry?" Breq said. "And I have read a lot of poetry that the only reason it might be inaccessible is because it was pointless."

She wasn't arguing, just being curious about the reasoning.

[intotheout]

"A lot of people I know would say that lyrics don't count. Like, okay, so some of the best poets in, like, fifty years back home are hip hop artists, right? But almost everyone says that doesn't count, because they're rapping about growing up poor or being in gangs instead of writing about pretty trees or whatever. It's this whole racist, classist thing. The only stuff that's real poetry is the stuff you read and don't understand."

[justice_undone]

"If your definition of poetry includes that you shouldn't understand it, then of course you would," Breq observed. "Or it wouldn't be poetry."