{"id":2916,"date":"2010-08-28T02:29:09","date_gmt":"2010-08-28T07:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/?p=2916"},"modified":"2010-08-28T02:29:09","modified_gmt":"2010-08-28T07:29:09","slug":"can-social-scientists-remove-their-flesh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/2010\/08\/28\/can-social-scientists-remove-their-flesh\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Social Scientists “Remove Their Flesh”?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Miller<\/a> introduces me to my favorite poem for the moment by Billy Collins<\/a>. As a social scientist who formerly wrote poetry, I sometimes find academic writing stultifying. You spend must of your graduate and pre-tenure life writing for others, even while you are supposed to be “finding your own voice.” The great joy of academia is when you at last figure out how to research and write in a way that is methodologically sound while also being courageous, personal and pure. <\/p>\n

Purity
\n<\/strong>
\nMy favorite time to write is in the late afternoon,
\nweekdays, particularly Wednesdays.
\nThis is how I go about it:
\nI take a fresh pot of tea into my study and close the door.
\nThen I remove my clothes and leave them in a pile
\nas if I had melted to death and my legacy consisted of only
\na white shirt, a pair of pants, and a pot of cold tea.
\nThen I remove my flesh and hang it over a chair.
\nI slide it off my bones like a silken garment.
\nI do this so that what I write will be pure,
\nCompletely rinsed of the carnal,
\nuncontaminated by the preoccupations of the body.
\nFinally I remove each of my organs and arrange them
\non a small table near the window.
\nI do not want to hear their ancient rhythms
\nwhen I am trying to tap out my own drumbeat.
\nNow I sit down at the desk, ready to begin.
\nI am entirely pure: nothing but a skeleton at a typewriter.
\nI should mention that sometimes I leave my penis on.
\nI find it difficult to ignore the temptation.
\nThen I am a skeleton with a penis at a typewriter.
\nIn this condition I write extraordinary love poems,
\nmost of them exploiting the connection between sex
\nand death.
\nI am concentration itself: I exist in a universe
\nwhere there is nothing but sex, death and typewriting.
\nAfter a spell of this I remove my penis too.
\nThen I am all skull and bones typing into the afternoon.
\nJust the absolute essentials, no flounces.
\nNow I write only about death, most classical of themes
\nin language light as the air between my ribs.
\nAfterward, I reward myself by going for a drive at sunset.
\nI replace my organs and slip back into my flesh
\nAnd clothes. Then I back the car out of the garage
\nAnd speed through woods on winding country roads,
\nPassing stone walls, farmhouses, and frozen ponds,
\nAll perfectly arranged like words in a famous sonnet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What do you think? Does this poem apply in any way to academic writing? Or is this simply an illustration of effective fiction\/literary writing? I personally think that social scientists can “remove their flesh” via the questions they ask, the conclusions they draw, and the way they seek to apply the knowledge they create.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Miller introduces me to my favorite poem for the moment by Billy Collins. As a social scientist who formerly wrote poetry, I sometimes find academic writing stultifying. You spend must of your graduate and pre-tenure life writing for others, even while you are supposed to be “finding your own voice.” The great joy of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8986,8985],"class_list":["post-2916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-academic-writing","tag-billy-collins"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2916"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2917,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2916\/revisions\/2917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}