Surprise, or, What I Learned as an Editor

John Berryman singing hymns (or, frozen in the moment before a sneeze)

In my third semester of undergraduate study, I enrolled in a course called Syntax, Semantics, and Style. It was a required course, one of those over-regulated, over-evaluated staples of certain curricula that no student ever expects to like. I was lucky enough, however, to have been assigned an instructor who understood these things. On the first day of class, without speaking, she wrote two words on the whiteboard: “Good Writing.” She then asked each student to define the term in as few words as possible. 

I’ve tried over the years since to remember what I wrote, but I think memories have a way of prioritizing themselves; the simple two-word definition our instructor eventually revealed to us—after ten minutes or so of ripping through her students’ careful attempts—has stuck in my mind ever since. “Verbal surprise,” she said. “It’s that simple.”

Of course, nothing is that simple—not to say that little aphorism didn’t serve me well throughout the remainder of my undergraduate studies. I clung to it like a mantra. Each piece I read in workshop:
“Is this surprising?” Each passage I was instructed to analyze: “How does this surprise the reader?”  Simplicity certainly has its place.

That place, unfortunately, doesn’t extend far beyond the Bachelor of Arts degree, at least not in terms of literary criticism. Once I graduated, I began working as an editor for Artichoke Haircut. Finding myself increasingly in the company of better writers than I encountered in my undergraduate workshops, I quickly recognized the inherent fallacies of my beloved mantra.“This piece is/is not surprising,” may have worked for a few theses, but it didn’t exactly hold up to the scrutiny of an editorial staff hell-bent on putting together a quality collection of fiction and poetry, not only  to be read and enjoyed, but marketed as well.

It Has to Live in The Air :: A Conversation with Baltimore’s Own Chris Toll

“The more trash, the better,” he said.

I agreed.

We both had some vague notion of a Baltimorean aesthetic in mind.  We both lacked any aptitude for digital photography.  We had come there, though,—to the littered Station North alleyway—to communicate as best we could.
   
It was, admittedly, a rocky start.  Our photographer had dropped out last-minute, leaving my jittery, untrained eye to capture the essence of Chris Toll, a man who I quite honestly had no idea how to talk to.  It was quickly becoming clear that the Chris Toll with whom I had become acquainted through my week-long intake of The Disinformation Phase, that strong-voiced, verbally decisive work of certain apocalypse, was locked away deep inside the man who now stood arms-folded in front of me, unapologetically tangible and soft-spoken.  A “recovering catholic,” as he would later put it.  I was utterly unprepared.

Editors' Shorts :: #1

Narrative Flow

The thought was in the head; the head

was somewhat

connected to the neck; the neck

was frail and wanted badly to snap, but

                could not.

It was

begrudgingly

interested in the head.

It

wished secretly

to be pulled into the skull’s frivolous breezing

like a string,

to

fray.

 -      jonathan gavazzi