The Saturday Spotlight for December 22nd, 2012

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Saturday Spotlight for December 22nd, 2012


Daily Literature Deviations is proud to feature this special recognition article!
You can show your support by :+fav:ing this News Article. We hope this gives you some insight into the person behind the art. Please comment and :+fav: the features and congratulate the artist!


Artists will be featured in a special news article every Saturday. Major points to SilverInkblot and LionesseRampant for doing the hard work and research that goes into these articles!  

Today's featured deviant is:
:star: Synesthi!:star:


Questions

 

1. Tell us a bit about yourself and your writing.

I am a Synesthete (a person with synesthesia) and am seventeen years old. I spent the first fourteen years of my life steadily realizing that I am different but not knowing why. I was terrified to tell anyone, and so many characters in my writing who are young are scared, insecure people. They are my way of dealing with a part of myself that was damaged first by hiding and then by subsequent bullying.

I do two sorts of writing: slate writing and collection writing. Slate writing is something that I want to say, and most of my better-known pieces are slate writing. Collection writing is when I just want to write, and I incorporate little fragments that I collect all day into my writing. The best examples might be a piece where it seems like a collection of things you'd see in a day. Slate writing is when life turns into a piece. Collection writing is when you build a piece out of life.

2. How do you feel about dA as a literature community?

I think dA is a great place to write, but I often feel that literature is an afterthought, compared to say paintings or photos. It isn't integrated. Take the representation in DDs for example. Literature people read literature DDs. Painting people often don't.

That being said, dA is without a doubt one of the most supportive communities I've ever been part of, and I'm happy to be here!

3. What advice would you give to a beginning writer?

Always remember that no one can write what you are writing. You are a whole, reverberating universe in a human frame, and everything you have to say is yours. It isn't mine, it isn't your best friend's, and it isn't your English teacher's. And this means that your writing is worth it. Your writing matters. I think if you can remember that, you can accomplish a lot.

4. What themes do you like to incorporate in your writing?

Mortality, destruction, and hope through an unexpected source. I wouldn't call synesthesia a theme, but rather a subject matter, but that does come up a lot.

5. Do you ever re-write your pieces, or do you let them come as they will? How long do you have to work on a piece before you can consider it "finished?"

I usually don't let writing sit very long, and I don't rewrite. I think I can edit my works until the end of time, but as I am capturing a snapshot of myself, that isn't fair. So no, if I read it aloud, and I think it is okay, it is done for me.


Poetry



SometimesSometimes I forget
That the sky is blue,
That birds sing in the mornings,
And the lavender of early
Summer air.
The laughter of the creek
Falls upon deaf ears.
The maple leaves become dull,
Losing their crimson songs.
I forget that maple keys
Are lost faerie wings,
That stars have families,
And my trees have names,
Voices.
I forget to sample berries,
To pick flowers, to toss peanuts
To hungry jays and squirrels.
Sometimes I live
On a sheet of ice,
My mind wrapped in gray,
Voiceless fog.
I lose my friend's voices,
Cannot recall why, even if far away,
They insist on asking after me.
I forget to feel their love.
And I realize I cannot find
Myself in the mirror.
I guess it's that
That sends me outside,
Clutching the broken sky to
My pale face,
Wandering soullessly to my
Neighborhood field.
There I lie in the growing grass,
Watching as blackbirds fly
In the clouds.
I curl inwards on my side,
Eyes closed, and listen
To the earth hum.
I let myself breathe,
Truly taste the open air.
And when I
"Sometimes" by Synesthi


BicyclesShe walked to school every day, her backpack too heavy on her thin, sloping shoulders. Her mother had walked her to school the first day, but she had spontaneously become a big girl overnight, and so now she walked alone.
The air was powdery-dry; full of autumn leaves ground up fine and tossed to the breeze. The trees swayed around her, and she pressed her lips together, walking faster.
~~~
He road his bike to school every day, perched upon a rusty mess of metal and worn plastic.  He usually arrived soon after her, chaining his bike to the old fence. She could always hear the faint sound of his tires skimming over the edge of the dirt.
She wanted to say hi, but she was shy and younger then he was. She did not even know how to ride a bicycle. She watched him though, trying to learn.
~~~
It had been foggy all day on the thin mountain road. The occasional car that went by was a ghost, passing by the school and the small children within.
The girl wrapped herself in her faded swea
"Bicycle" by Synesthi


DragonsWhen I was young,
I believed in
Dragons.
Swooping, flaming reptiles
With burning eyes
And tongues that could lick
Sand into
Glass.
Now that I am older,
I believe in
Calculus,
In the Periodic Table,
In equations and
The Scientific Method.
My mind is full of figures,
Facts and numbers in plain,
Blocky letters.
I keep my childhood in a box
Behind my winter jackets.
But at night,
Sometimes I dig them out,
Look them over with new eyes.
My swirly, frilly
Make-believe stories,
The reptiles that still flame
And claw about the box.
Then I bid them farewell
And pack them back up.
I feel sad, but not too much,
Because they are safe
And not far off.
In fact, I smile.
I will have so much
To give to my children.
"Dragons" by Synesthi


InkYou found me as
A mess of sharp corners
And smudged,
Wrinkly fingerprints.
Someone had wadded me up
And shoved me in the corner,
Trying to forget about
Our shared past.
I guess you were curious
Enough to take a second look,
Smoothing out the worst of the
Wrinkles
And speaking soothingly.
You said you could fix it.
And for a while, you did.
I became smoother,
Less wrinkled,
And some of the rips knitted together.
I was still a bit smudged
By my past,
And had some sharp edges.
They made me
meghan.
And I had a crazy personality,
An odd writing style,
And a habit of not looking
People in the
Eyes.
Those made me
Meghan.
But you
Had other plans.
You made me blunt my corners,
Straighten my lines,
And rip clean my ragged edges.
You made me look at you,
And made me bleed down
To the horizontal blue lines
Of my soul.
Red ink washed the lines away
And grew formless in your hands.
I displeased you,
And you crumpled me up,
Still bleeding,
And shoved me in my old,
Dark corner.
Why couldn't you realiz
"Ink" by Synesthi




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Thanks so much for supporting the lit community and this special feature project!

~ The DailyLitDeviations Team ~


Prepared by:  LionesseRampant
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Comments1
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Nichrysalis's avatar
Nichrysalis
:love: Congrats on the feature! It is very well-deserved!