Portraits in Pain: The Psychology of Inspiration in Prose Poems by Lynn Emanuel
Reconstructing notions such as potentiality and inspiration, Emanuel’s prose poems,
whose thematic range spans from involvement with the paintings of her renowned father
Akiba Emanuel (a model and ‘pupil’ of Matisse) to the ‘portraits’ of Gertrude Stein,
illuminate the interrelationship between language and world, and the psychology of inhabiting
both through inspiration. This paper will address the question of what fuels creativity when it
is put to work through the involvement of other voices which are represented (in Emanuel’s
case) as suffering from having their genius interrupted either by death, by lack of recognition,
or by amnesia.
In all Emanuel’s three collections of poems, and a couple of other chap books, inspiration
plays an important role, yet Emanuel is not interested in inspiration in the traditional sense to
mean divine connection with a higher power or a muse, and romantic transcendence.
Inspiration for Emanuel is always triggered by an attempt at understanding what pain is. The
pain of creation and composition, and the pain of reading and writing promote two different
types of understanding: first, that there is something to create out of nothing, and second, that
‘nothing’ is always a beginning. Inspiration for Emanuel is therefore the beginning of nothing.
But how does one begin nothing, a created nothing, that is, a nothing which can be rendered
and read and which can explain both the pain of understanding such relations and the
inspiration that befalls them? One of Emanuel’s answers seems to be given through her use of
amnesia. It is through the theme of forgetfulness that a connection between the writer an...
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... . Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999
Lethem, Jonathan, ed. “Introduction”. The Vintage Book of Amnesia: an anthology of Writing
on the Subject of Memory Loss. New York: Vintage Books, 2000
Suárez Araúz, Nicomedes. “The Amnesis Manifesto”, 1984 [http://www.-
smith.edu/calc/amnesia/manifesto.html]
Zawinski, Andrena. “Poetry in Review”. In Posse Review. Osiduy. Issue 9. Vol. 1, year
undisclosed [http://webdelsol.com/InPosse/zawinski9.htm]
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1 Joyce 1992, 854
2 Domangue 1997, no pagination
3 Berman 1993, no pagination
4 Emanuel 1995, 42
5 Suárez-Araúz, 1984, no pagination
6 Joyce 1992, 854
7 Emanuel 1995, 57
8 Emanuel 1999, 7
9 Zawinski, no year; no pagination
10 Emanuel 1999, 27
11 Emanuel 1999, 28
12 Clark 1997, 10
13 Clark 1997, 119
14 Emanuel 1999, 29
15 Emanuel 1999, 30
16 Emanuel 1999, 34
17 Emanuel 1999, 34
18 Lethem 2000, xv
is absolutely nothing in the world, no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies." Then he goes on to say that
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Jim Holt likes asking questions, rather big ones. In the book, 'Why does the world exist?', he takes on one of the biggest questions in his conversation with scientists and theologists. Jim Holt raises the central question Why is there something rather than nothing. He questions the origin of everything in this book. In the book, Jim Holt, himself wants to know how nothingness, a state in which nothing exists, gives rise to the universe in which all things exist. The book goes into detail about the mystery of existence. Not just our existence, but everyones and everything. To come up with an answer to this perplexing question, Holt interviews various people. Holt travels across the world, to England, France and United States to find answers to the mystery of existence. He interviews religious people as well as atheists, physicists and philosophers and Platonist. Holt visits each of these people posing the question, Why does the world exist? And Why is there something rather than nothing? He writes about their responses to this question. The answers the various theologists and philosophers give us a vivid glimpse of the speaker, but do not solve the riddle of the existence.
In addition to sorrow and sympathy, with memories one can also obtain an immense amount of knowledge and wisdom. With certain memories of loss and fail, one can prevent the mishaps that might occur in the future. For example, when the ...
Vladimir Nabokov’s Speak, Memory is a novel written with symbolism, imagery, and metaphoric language. He writes his novel in a detail orientated structure with each chapter separated into sections. This shows us that Nabokov is a detail orientated person and wants his reader to understand his thought process throughout the novel. An example of Nabokov using such imagery and symbolism is when he writes about his bedtime ritual.
... Unquiet Mind, p.72). Such unique ideas and associations provide significant evidence for aid in all types of creativity.
Essentially, memories are compositions of fiction, crafted from selected representations of experiences, both authentic and invented. Even further, they serve to provide a sort of framework for creating meaning, value and purpose in one’s life. However, in Beloved, memory is represented as a dangerous and debilitating facility of the sensitive and penetrable human consciousness. The main
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Eva Hoffman’s memoir, Lost in Translation, is a timeline of events from her life in Cracow, Poland – Paradise – to her immigration to Vancouver, Canada – Exile – and into her college and literary life – The New World. Eva breaks up her journey into these three sections and gives her personal observations of her assimilation into a new world. The story is based on memory – Eva Hoffman gives us her first-hand perspective through flashbacks with introspective analysis of her life “lost in translation”. It is her memory that permeates through her writing and furthermore through her experiences. As the reader we are presented many examples of Eva’s memory as they appear through her interactions. All of these interactions evoke memory, ultimately through the quest of finding reality equal to that of her life in Poland. The comparison of Eva’s exile can never live up to her Paradise and therefore her memories of her past can never be replaced but instead only can be supplemented.
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