Is there a classical text that inspired your writing?
This piece was inspired by a number of things, but one key element that I wanted to use from a classical text was derived from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. We read an excerpt that told the tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice, and I was fascinated with the concept of telling a story through a poem; a delicate balance of tethering your narrative to a plot while at the same time maintaining the poetic rhythm that I was trying to capture.
Were there other mythological stories you read in the class that give (or might in the future give) inspiration for other stories?
A work that I drew enormous inspiration from was a short story that we read in class, Dido’s Lament by Tessa Hadley. The idea of using a fable or classical story as the frame for my own work interested me greatly, and provided the jumping off point for several pieces of writing that I hope to continue refining.
Dancing
“Do you like to dance?”
I wondered what dancing is,
Is it reserved for those who practice until their feet bleed
Deliciously into bags of ice, satisfied that they have repeated the same
Delicate steps over and over, a smile playing on the corner of their lips
As they call themself a dancer, and mean it,
And wake up early to repeat them again, and
Perfect them until the ability to smile onstage comes in stride, and they can smile and mean it,
And the ritualistic synchronicity of the bodies is beautiful, and the dancer feels the perfection of the steps
they repeated washing over them,
As they finish and bow and rise to grin at the watching crowd and their face is real and is one thing that
they could never repeat,
And they are dancing.
Or maybe dancing is
Found only in parties of people, crowded and
Exquisitely suffocating, As the scent of moving bodies wafts and drifts
In the air that there doesn’t seem to be enough of, the noise that they’re dancing to soon drowned out by
voices screaming along,
And then the dancers are no longer dancing along to music,
But to each other, and the sounds that their feet make,
And the sweat and darkness of the moment, hearts
Thumping in tandem as their limbs
Are waving and their dancing consists
Of jumping and yelling and the sparks of weightlessness that throb across the one body that they have
melted together into,
And they are dancing.
Or perhaps dancing is
Seen only in the silent thoughts of someone struggling with boredom,
Their head swirling as they don’t learn teacher’s lessons they haven’t learned before,
And soon something begins worming gently into their mind,
A song reminds them of another moment, the tune ingrained into the surface of their
Skull as they hum the comfortable dips and swells, joined by the cadence of their thoughts
Their lips moving barely to coax the noise as it escapes from their
Mind, tapping their feet on a linoleum floor,
The dancer tapping their fingernails on the plastic wood of a desk,
The tap of a neighbour’s hand upon theirs to get them to stop, it’s annoying,
The neighbor becoming the dancer as well when they hear
A melody that spreads and leaps from one ear to the next, and then they squint, recognising,,
The first dancer turning and smiling at them when they hear the same tune whistle from their neighbour’s
mouth, and then they are dancing together, quietly, sitting side by side as the lesson drones on, singing the
same song,
And they are dancing together.
Or possibly dancing is
What a musician feels when they are playing in an orchestra
Feet lightly stomping on the carpeted floor to
Keep rhythm, the rhythm of the musical voices that seep from all of their instruments
As each tune answers the one before it
Fingers fluttering over keys
Strings gently tugged and grazed to release the sound
That now surrounds each and every dancer, as they catch their breath and smile,
And mean it, and look across the heads of those around them,
And follow the score, and follow the conductor
Delighting in the colorful artwork that is floating above them,
And they are dancing together.
“Yeah, I mean, yes. I do like to dance.”
You say, and you walk away, and smile,
Because you don’t need
Anyone else, what if you can dance alone
Eyes shut, in a silent room, all fear of judgement dissipating as you move, and smile,
Knowing that you wouldn’t care what others think
Anyway,
Because you never have, and you can even dance alone in public
Others telling you to stop, please, it’s annoying,
And you laugh, and continue, dancing by yourself to
Nothing at all, knowing that you’re the dancer, and one day they’ll all regret not joining you
Because you love to dance, so
You dance alone.