The lower case j
I don't capitalize letters on purpose.
I’m not kidding though, breaking writing rules is really satisfying to me, but not just to be contrarian. I genuinely like playing with words and text in unexpected ways when I like how it looks and sounds better.
If it works for me, I go for it.
I do not care if I am breaking rules.
I respect how rules start trajectories; I reject when they control forward motion.
It was recently that book critics were reviewing a novel I had just read, and their critique seemed to be about collegiate frustrations with repeating words, or phrasing that wasn’t correct, and it happened to be one of the things I most loved about the writing! So of course some part of me has been deep in thought about the world of writing and how maybe I have a slightly different perspective since I am looking at it through a visual art lens.
I love to write and I call myself a writer, but I do art more. I have also always seen text itself as an art form, so each letter and group of letters are little experiences in themselves.
tiny universes.
little bitty wormholes.
(also, language and how words are understood are different based on culture, upbringing, experience, and context. So I would also argue that writing is incredibly open to interpretation).
I’ve always loved writing my name with a lower case j for example.
I mean, look at them.
J
j
which one is more fun?
The one with the little dot of course!
And we all know that the history of alphabets and typography is many layered and rather epic.
But today I’m not here to go into that.
I’m here to talk about breaking rules, and why we get so hung up over them.
Maybe its because I see letters and words as colors in the watercolor tray
and maybe I want to let them flow like watercolor does, moving out of containment.
Maybe its because I remember loving E.E.Cummings
who seemed to do things differently
when I “studied” poetry for a second centuries ago in school.
He wrote this:
beware beware beware
because because because
equals(transparent or
science must
Bait laws with
stars to catch telescopes
)why.
Being is
patience is patient is)patiently
all the eyes of these with listening
hands only fishermen are
prevented by cathedrals
Those words are telling mini stories to each other, meandering around and relating in ways unexpected. Thats how I paint. Thats how I join ideas and find other worlds.
Letting the ideas flow into and out of strange portals of time.
If I were to talk to this poem might it sound like this?
“science must?”
It must search it must quest.
“Bait laws?”
take stock of the old. Chase closer truths.
“Being is
patience is patient is)patiently”
Too much patience for me.
“all the eyes of these with listening
hands only fishermen are
prevented by cathedrals”
fishermen’s hands listen to the sea.
cathedrals, safer havens.
I always wanted to live in a church. Minus the religion.
Anyway, I’ll always use a lower case j.
I’ll always start some sentences with and.
and. sometimes letting the words and letters go off and be
is actually what we all wanted.
thank you E. E. Cummings,
I think you helped me become myself you bold creature you
