And I love scrums. 

So, after my diatribe on non-fiction (to which I am prone, periodically) and its having its own celebratory month, like NaNoWriMo, ForeverTeal pointed out a few supposed holes in my claim of a fiction centered cosmos.  I will address each of these in order below. 

ForeverTeal wrote: 

Response from “The World Out There”:

April - National Poetry Month, complete with NaPoWriMo established in 1996 (3 years before NaNoWriMo) by the American Academy of Poets (to reject poetry as a nonentity would be to disown W.H.Auden whose work you have claimed to enjoy though not understood which men never can anyway per your conclusion that emotion is a purely feminine construct); also National Card and Letter Writing Month.

While I do like Auden (E.E. Cummings, Poe, and Lewis Carroll also have work I enjoy), I don’t think that affection extends to a claim of ownership.  As for the existence of a poetry month, well, of course!  What else do you do with an endangered species?  You give it its own preserve to try to keep it breathing.  (I don’t say this with relish; quite the contrary.  While poetry is not my proverbial cup of tea, it is a near religion to others, and I don’t think we’re better off for its precipitous decline over the last sixty or so years.)  More to the point, poetry is far closer to fiction than non-fiction because of its emphasis on meaning (which is emotionally predicated).  Fiction is about truth—or you could say meaning or relevance.  Non-fiction, especially of the narrative variety, aspires to that, but always within the burdensome constraints of fact and veracity.  By striving for both ends, it knows it can achieve neither.  Meaning requires interpretation, and interpretation pollutes fact.  Uninterpreted facts (which means unorganized facts) are meaningless, while interpreted facts are not pure.  Poetry, like fiction, emphasizes meaning to the point of disregarding veracity when needed, in most cases.  Because of this kinship, I find it reasonable to offer poetry a month without risking the unraveling of all creation. 

As for a month dedicated to letter writing, this is clearly a memorial, as letter writing is dead.  Sad but true.  At least there isn’t a National Texting Month.     

November - in addition to NaNoWriMo, Family Stories Month (family stories usually being memoirs/bios/autobios which are generally nonfiction though not always purely) and National Life Writing Month; also Dear Santa Letter Month

Let’s be honest: most family stories are fictional.  They may be “based on a true story,” but ask any genuine non-fiction writer just how much respect that term deserves.  Family stories aren’t about what happened; they’re about how people responded to what happened.  That response is so important that it tends to change over time with the needs of the family.  This need for change is so powerful that the catalytic event will change as well so as to better fit the interpretive needs of the storytellers over time.  When a family or life story is recorded well, it communicates a genuine emotional response to something.  When fiction is written well, it does the exact same thing.  The factual basis of what provoked the emotional response is, largely or completely, irrelevant.  If I write a contemporary novel well and tell you it’s true, and you believe it, its impact on you is that of non-fiction.  Veracity has nothing to do with any of this; the perception of veracity does.  The only life stories that can truly be categorized as bordering on factual are listed dates, names, and events done by strict chronology.  And come on, who wants a whole month of that?

December - National Write a Business Plan Month and Write to a Friend Month

The best way to ensure you have no friends is to speak and act always out of unpolluted honesty and to treat fact as immutable.  No friendship can survive without a kind and wise dose of periodic fiction.  Often times, the best in us is brought out by our friends telling us stories about ourselves that aren’t strictly true.  As for National Write a Business Plan Month, when did you last consider someone writing “Invent invisible glasses, sell a billion, get rich” less than fictional?  And I officially motion for December to be changed to National Write a World Domination Plan Month.   

Other months of interest:
January - National Book Blitz Month (feature book on a relevant website: 1,000 Places to See Before You Die [or atomize] - a nonfiction work)

The more non-fiction (true not merely named such) books such a site includes, the less relevant said site becomes.

February - Library Lovers Month (notice nonfiction genre sections when you next visit aforesaid institution)

You do know that those non-fiction sections are just for the books that haven’t been caught in their madeupness yet, right?

October - National Book Month (note the various forms of aforementioned genre)

This one you simply misunderstand.  As October is my birthday, this month is in celebration of my book.  Note that “Book” is singular, see?

December - Read a New Book Month (note that books come in the nonfiction variety and thus exist, noteably one Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass - a NONFICTION book I purchased yesterday, largely due to your recommendation of it at a workshop I attended. Care to retract any such non-entity statements?

Donald Maass’s books are good and, as non-narrative forms, they have a closer claim to non-fiction than most books that boast such.  Does that deserve a month in such books’ honor?  That’s really irrelevant, isn’t it.  After all, December is already taken: it’s National Write a World Domination Plan Month. 

Which begs the question: Are your opinions fictional or non-fictional? The implications of the first scenario are quite amusing. Those of the second mean you yourself are a non-entity.

If you define non-fiction as factual and verifiable, my opinions are closer to fiction—which does not mean unreal or unmeaningful.  Quite the contrary.  All our opinions move beyond pure documentation of fact; we move through this world making stuff up as we go.  The only difference is I don’t feel comfortable hiding that much of what I make up is actually made up.  I don’t hang a non-fiction trapping on it.  

Now, no quibbling, driveling, or dithering. Before you completely dissolve, please distill your atoms so that “Essence of Clint Johnson” remains as a trophy of my momentary victory and my antagonist’s demise in the latest battle of wits.

Warning to readers: this is what happens when you ask an innocent question and are subjected to public harangue. It is curiously a simultaneous honor and humiliation worthy regardless of some manner of retort.

Yes, this is exactly what happens, that is exactly how it feels.

(And just for the record, ForeverTeal is a good friend, and we pick on each other like this often.  So no comments about my being abusive, please.  After all, Teal knows that I’m the one perpetually picked on.)

On Thursday the 19th I’ll be conducting my first full-blown assembly at Bell View elementary in the south Salt Lake area. Don’t know if any of you have kids that attend this school, but if so tell them to let me know that their parents are particularly astute and interesting (characteristics shared by all frequenters of this site, I’m sure).

Beyond Bell View, the next six months look to hold a number of such visits, so keep your eye on this blog. There’s a distinct chance that if you live in the Salt Lake and surrounding areas that I may be coming to your kids’ school. Also, if any of you are interested in observing a school visit (many of you may be planning to do your own sometime in the future), just let me know and I’ll invite you to an event. Give me a few times to get the program down and I’ll be happy to let people see what I’ve come up with.

As for the “something” in this post’s title, do any of you ever wonder what exactly is poetry? One of the many, many random thoughts that continually ricochet through my head is, I think, an odd attempt to answer that question. (Do any of you have spontaneous definitions or semantic explorations just shoot through your heads? If not, how weird are you?) Here’s what popped in there this time: the semantic exercise which turns blunt tools (words) simultaneously sharp and squishy. If anyone knows what that means, please let me know, because it has me awfully curious.

Oh, and just a reminder to come see me Monday at the Layton Barnes and Noble at 7:00 for my free workshop.