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What Setting Goblin Market to Music Taught Me about Writing Fiction

September 6, 2021

Writing

affect, experiencing, fiction, music, poetry, sounds, writing

Recently, on a whim, I decided to set Christina Rossetti’s poem Goblin Market to music. I had a lot of fun doing that, as I expected. What I didn’t expect was that the experience would teach me something about writing fiction. But remember, art is holistic.

The reason I decided to share my experience of adapting Goblin Market to music is that it makes for an excellent teaching opportunity. In other words, I want to share with you what I learned from this, because I believe it can be very efficient for anyone interested in writing fiction.

At the end of this post, I’ll also share a link to the album, which you can stream or download for free.

goblin market music
Cover of the Goblin Market music album. The Focus Protocol is a lo-fi music vehicle for some of my artistic ideas
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A JavaScript Poem Shuffler

July 18, 2020

Programming

creativity, defamiliarization, javascript, meaning, poetry, programming

As I’ve mentioned many times on the blog, meaning is a very fluid concept in literature. This fact inspired me to see what happens when we completely distort the author’s original intention, while still maintaining some minimal cohesion. This JavaScript poem shuffler was the result.

As the name perhaps implies, my JavaScript poem shuffler takes a poem and randomly reorganizes its lines.

Now, you might have two questions about this:

  • Doesn’t that render the poem meaningless?
  • Why should we care?

Amazingly, both these questions have the same answer, as we’ll see in more detail. Briefly, let me just say that this little coding exercise also provides us with excellent teaching material in terms of affective power and, indeed, the creation of meaning in literature.

JavaScript Poem Shuffler
Apparently chaotic patterns can still hold meaning – if they are predicated on affect. This JavaScript poem shuffler is a good example of this
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Byron’s “Prometheus” and Existential Empowerment

April 18, 2020

Criticism, Philosophy

death, defiance, experiencing, immortality, life, meaning, poetry

Lord Byron’s “Prometheus” is one of my favorite poems. Once, in a discussion about poetry, someone asked me why. I impulsively replied: “Because ‘Prometheus’ teaches you about not giving a fuck”.

Needless to say, the discussion became lively and several arguments and counter-arguments followed – all polite and civilized, which is rare these days.

I was asked to explain myself. I did. And I decided to transfer the conclusions from that discussion here.

Byron's Prometheus
Byron’s “Prometheus” tells us it’s our very mortality what makes us powerful
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