Transparent Words is a phrase coined by Jim Bennett to describe one of the functions of words within a poem. Some of his students took the title for this magazine. Here for the first time this is explained in part of the lecture series he gave in 1999.

(John Howard)

Word-Hoard

A lecture prepared for the Open University and issued by them as part of a series of audio tapes to support the course on Modern English Literature.

Intro;

Understanding and being able to define the words used and appreciating the spatial quality of them allow us to create moods, texture and layers of meaning. Looking for a transparent text for the narrative allows the cinematic quality to emerge, and if it is in poetry it can be used to establish layers of meaning beyond the surface.

When I was a child my father often listened to me read and after would go over those words which caused me to stumble. He would ask what the word meant and how it fitted into the story. Often because of the context or the sound of the word I would come up with some sort of answer. Then he would ask me, "What job is that word doing?" Sometimes it was easy to see the context other times it was not.

Occasionally he asked if there was an alternative that could have been used and I would stretch my growing mental thesaurus. If I found a simpler word or phrase then we would often spend time trying to find the reasons for the writer’s choice.

Often it came down to individual style, but just as often we felt the word had been used so that the reader would think the writer was smart or to give greater credibility to what he or she was saying. Also from an early age my dad encouraged me to write down words with which I was unfamiliar or phrases that I thought were particularly good. So, from about the age of seven until now I have followed this practice.

I have notebooks full of words and snippets of other people’s writing, clips from newspapers and notes of conversation. I suppose most other writers do the same; certainly those I have talked to about writing do.

If I have given the impression that my father was a great teacher, he was, but he realised that the mark of an individual was their ability to explain themselves clearly. Clarity mattered in my dad’s career in plumbing and shipbuilding as much as it does in mine as a writer.

Some years later I had to talk about the importance of clarity in writing and began to develop the idea of transparency. Transparent words I defined as those which did not obscure the meaning of what was being said. There are several other considerations in creating transparent text; syntax and sentence structures also play their part, but the building block is the word. A reader who has to consider or reconsider the meaning of a word or sentence has come across writing which lacks transparency.

Obviously the reader’s own knowledge and ability will have a direct effect on this, but transparency should be considered with intended audiences in mind. I like to think of the words on a page as being a window through which the reader can observe a scene.

When the words used make the reader work hard interpreting, or cause them to assume the meaning of a word due to its context, without fully understanding the word, then the scene may not be transmitted or interpreted in the way the author intended. Obviously, foreign or unknown names are an exception, as most readers will simply accept the label as representing a person or place without trying to interpret any further meanings.

With that exception it can be seen a writer may inadvertently create blocks to the accessibility of their work, thereby stopping the cinematic flow of images, which is the hallmark of accessible transparent writing. The contemporary book or story that "cannot be put down" is usually written in a transparent style.

I began to wonder how transparency applied to poetry. In many poems which are linguistically innovative, a word is chosen to challenge the reader's immediate perceptions and interpretation. In some respects this was the antithesis of transparency. In poetry the writer may select words for their sound rather than their meaning, or to juxtapose them in ways that bring exciting new possibilities, or they may even be chosen for their shape. Transparency is still important but often the musical quality or shape of the text has greater consideration.

I was also concerned that I may be accused of advocating dumbing down writing for the sake of simplicity; this is not my intent. Instead I looked to Robin Skelton's ideas relating to the spatial nature of language that appeared to be another aspect related to transparency.

Words are symbols, they are not in themselves the objects or scenes they attempt to discuss, explain or explore. Robin Skelton argues that the spatial nature of a word carries images and resonance beyond the surface meaning. In his book Poetic Truth, (Barnes and Noble 1978), Skelton discusses the state of mind of a poet, which he considers to be in "a heightened state of awareness" while writing. He believes that to see the subconscious effect the poem is having on the reader you need to consider the associative effects of the words used.

An example occurs in my short poem flocculent

you gave me a fleece coat
a present at Christmas
I didn't realise how cold I was
until it made me warm

Just a cursory read will reveal the ambiguity in the words cold and warm, which could be considered used as either emotional terms or related to the physical temperature. That may be all you want to know about the poem. But if you look again, the title is also adding to the resonance, flocculent – flock, fleece, lying like a fleece, that is restated in fleece coat – a contemporary idea but one which would also be recognised in other times, but as something else. A sheepskin, a cover, a fleece to be wrapped in. In medieval Britain Christians were buried wrapped in fleece. The fact that it was given at Christmas, the time of Christ’s coming, Christ who is known as the Lamb of God.

So just a simple reading provides a number of layers

The first: the linear narrative of the giving of a present, which makes the wearer warm.

The second: where the giving of the present creates an emotional bond between giver and receiver.

The third: where the fleece becomes the symbol for Christ who came at Christmas and brought emotional warmth

The fourth: where Christ represents the love of God in which the believer will be enfolded and this brings us back to the medieval idea of wrapping the dead in the sheepskin as a sign of their faith.

So it can be seen as a poem about salvation either in the emotional sense or the religious. And there are other readings available but perhaps the point about spatiality is made.

In a wider application the spatial nature of many poems is something felt through the mood created by the resonance of covert subconscious analysis rather than overtly present in the reading. Transparency then depends on clarity of language that allows a reader to read over a poem and build up a linear understanding based on the direct meaning of the words. Beyond these immediately accessible linear images, and the understanding they bring, there are other spatial levels, which can then be explored. This is the image of the poem that is designed like an onion, with numerous layers that can be explored and exposed through close-reading or as it is often known, exegesis.

In the following example, one of my own haiku, the images initially appear straightforward.

sun-lit window
reflects in a bubble

washday

But when you start to look at the spatial qualities of the words different images present themselves. Is it inside a building or outside? Is it a childhood image or a picture of drudgery or both? The answers will depend on the interpretation of the reader rather than the best intention of the writer. On a surface level it is an observation, on a deeper level it exposes a number of possible interpretations. In this the writer is at the liberty of the reader and it can be said that the work is not fully realized until it has been read and interpreted. And in this respect the reader is as important to the creative process as the writer.

In his work Skelton was looking at the spatial quality of words as something considered after a poem had been written, and as a tool exposing the unconscious choices made by the poet, and in some ways revealing the poet’s frame of mind when writing the piece. When transparency is considered it should not only be thought of as an analytical method but together with spatial awareness, used by the writer to make conscious decisions in the development of layers of meaning.

David Bateman's poem, Night And Day, as well as describing spatiality is also spatial in its own right.

I am dreaming

I am a poem.

The layers of meaning

are as simple

and as folded upon themselves

as blankets.

It can be seen that spatiality and transparency are both functions of individual words, phrases and sentences. Any part of language can be written in ways that can make it obscure to the reader. But the building block to create a transparent text or poem is the word.

In Anglo-Saxon times the travelling poet or troubadour was called a scop. When he was asked to recite or sing his stories it was said that he opened his word-hoard. In the Anglo-Saxon poem Widsith there is the line,

"Widsith spoke, unlocked his word-hoard"

And again in Beowulf,

"The leader of the troop unlocked his word-hoard"

It is clear that those who remembered the stories and could repeat or retell them were considered to hold a hoard like treasure.

This idea of a word-hoard is an intriguing one for writers; it is one that has been central to my understanding of writing from an early age, and I find it connects me to the three parts of this talk. My father helped me to develop my word-hoard and I believe that vocabulary and grammar are two of the most important tools for the writer.

Understanding and being able to define the words used and appreciating the spatial quality of them allow us to create moods, texture and layers of meaning. Looking for a transparent text for the narrative allows the cinematic quality to emerge, and if it is in poetry it can be used to establish layers of meaning beyond the surface.

When I began, I explained how my father worked with me to teach me words. He did not teach me to how to write; he taught me to love words helped me to build my word-hoard. I came to writing on my own, though I was encouraged with parental acclaim for each new piece I presented. But I can also distinctly remember a moment in my early teens when I woke up full of words and ideas and found them linking together for the very first time like music. From that moment I discovered I could write. Sometimes the music is apparent to all. Other times only I can hear it and I have to work hard to bring it out. But since that day I have been a writer.

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