MULTIVALENCE

Multivalence:

The Manifesto: 

An artist “listens” with his heart, catching messages from his stream of thought.  At the time he hears the message, the artist has no knowledge of the meaning in the message.  The Muse sends the message to the artist, but the message is intended for the Reader of the art, and each Reader needs their own lesson.  Thus, true art exudes as many meanings as there are Readers.  Meanwhile, the Artist's role is to fertilize, listen, hear, and then prune the message.  Creating art is a spiritual, organic process that involves Listening, Crafting, and Reacting.  A true Artist is driven to listen to the Muse, as doing so is in itself a spiritual act.  A true Artist also acts as a Reader of others’ art, and completes the organic process in the act of Reacting.



The Philosophy Born:

"We return to them again and again, not necessarily because of any particular meaning they may convey, but more because of the exciting and deep way in which the meanings are interrelated or fused together into a powerful pattern."
                                                                                                   - Charles Jencks (1939-  )

Multivalence became a principle of poetry in 2008 when the poet Dan Sturn began writing about it in the on-line writing portal, www.writing.com.  He posted a “manifesto” that has grown to this current document in less than a year’s time.  Several fellow-writers seized upon this principle as one that they naturally follow.

Dan Sturn describes his writing technique using a term he borrowed from architectural theory:  Multivalence.  This term, coined by Charles Jencks in the 1970's, articulates the phenomenon in art that different works have different meanings to different people with different backgrounds at different times.  There are many levels of meaning. 

During daytime, Dan Sturn consults with banks about issues of Information Security and Cyber-crime.  He finds most of his philosophy about Information Security eerily similar to the 106 tenets taught in Pema Chodron’s Comfortable with Uncertainty.  (Please see the website: http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/pema/ for more information about this excellent book.)  Dan regularly speaks to audiences about Information Security, preaching that the key to securing an information system is Awareness.  Increase the awareness "users" have of the threats to that system and the vulnerabilities in that system, and you increase the security of the system.  Many of the tenets proposed in Comfortable with Uncertainty can be metaphors for methods used to increase organizational awareness. 

Shortly after finding Pema’s work, Dan Sturn learned the art of "journalizing as meditation" from a local spiritual worker.  The benefit of journalizing was that one is able to "see" and thus "become aware" of thoughts and ideas inside the mind.  This journalizing practice paralleled the meditation techniques Dan was already practicing based on Pema's work, and the awareness techniques practiced in information security management.  Like any other meditation practice, staying with the practice is not easy.  Many emotions arise.  As he forced himself to journal whatever came to his mind during his daily meditation discipline, Dan learned to listen to his mind. 

Then suddenly poetry appeared in Dan Sturn's journals “given” to him by “the Muse.”    This continues to this day, creating an archive of hundreds of poems.  Interestingly, the Poems that seem to come directly from the Muse had an ability to present many different meanings.  Dan found that different people would gather different opinions as to the meaning of these poems.  It was as if a message came to him meant for others, and the others . . . the Readers . . . understood the message based on their own perspectives.

In reaction to this, Dan adopted the architectural design theory of “Multivalence” to describe this phenomenon in poetry. 

The Two Tripods:

A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem.
                                                                                                             - Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

One of the more radical presumptions of Dan Sturn’s philosophy of Multivalence is the notion that Poetry and Art in general serve an important aim: to connect people to their higher power.  In doing this, art reflects culture.  But culture is a reflection of spirituality.  To describe this, Sturn postulated that Art is an action that requires the foundation of “two tripods.”  The first tripod addresses who is acting, and the second addresses how the action is carried out. 

The Who Tripod consists of Listener, Muse, and Reader.  A listener just happens to be in the right place at the right time, in the right frame of mind, to “hear” a message from the Muse, who intends the message for many different Readers.  What distinguishes Poets from most people is that they are actively listening for messages from the Muse, and they enjoy the “craft” of “pruning” the message according to certain artistic principles.  Often pundits will become confused between the two, considering art with an excellent message as “poor” because they disagree with the craft.  A great example of this is inherent in most religious debates.

The How Tripod consists of the three phases of creating art:  Listening, Crafting, and Reacting.  The listening phase may come during a shower, in a meeting, while painting, etc.  But it is that moment when the Muse speaks to the Listener.  This occurs millions of times in a person’s life.  Unfortunately, most of us are not trained to listen; and even when we are trained to listen, we sometimes are so caught up in our past or future that we do not recognize the Muse.  (This is what Dan Sturn calls "stuck on the bank of was or will.")

The Crafting phase separates an “artist” from a “lay person.”  In this phase, the message is presented for consumption by the “Readers” through a process of “pruning” or shaping the original message to conform to specific rules of a craft. 

The Reaction phase is often overlooked by many pundits.  However, Multivalence proposed that the Reaction phase is equally important to any other phase, for this is when the message from the Muse is actually delivered.  One unintended phenomenon of www.writing.com, which formalizes the reaction phase for thousands of “Readers,” is that much art is actually created DURING the reaction phase.


Message from the Muse:

The essence of bravery is being without self-deception
                                                                                                             - Pema Chodron (1936 - )

The message inherent in art comes from a higher power, whether that is God or Allah or Jesus or Ram or what Dan Sturn refers to as "the Muse."  However you look at it, art must be treated as sacred for the process of creating art is a spiritual process.  The most basic way that man emulates God is in creation.

"The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood."
                                                                                                             - Jean Cocteau (1889 - 1963)

Often a poet is surprised by the "meaning" the Reader gathers from his poems.  But Dan Sturn proposes that this is a natural process, and that the Poet doesn't really understand the meaning in his own work as it was given to him from his Muse.  When a Poet sees that somebody has gathered a meaning from a poem that did not occur to the Poet . . . . Multivalence has occurred.

From a verse of Dan Sturn's poem, “Style”:

         “So when you listen to a Poem
         be glad that you’re the Reader,
         the gist is yours alone—
         for your heart, the Poem’s a seeder.”

         “The seeds of nature’s sense,
         we call Multivalence.”



Manifesto in Verse
To better understand the theory of Multivalence, consider reading "Style"  which presents the theory in poetry, or "Multivalence"  which establishes a perceived history of the ultimate expression of Multivalence, which is the history of man's theology.  Beyond that, Dan Sturn's book, "Bottle in the River"  is a complete work of Multivalence.  This book, which proposes we use a river as the metaphor for the Muse, is about a Poet's journey down that river.  It was developed through the use of journaling as a meditation process. 



An Organic Process

It is dangerous to leave written that which is badly written.
                                                 - William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)

As a strong advocate of "free verse," William Carlos Williams also believed that meter and form were imposed upon poetry by man.  In other words, form and meter were not a fundamental part of Poetry's nature.  The structure arising from meter and form was forced into the process.

Dan Sturn takes that philosophy a step further.  In this global economy, where poetry is being translated from one language to another across all barriers, meter and form are simply not possible in order for a poem to reach all potential Readers.  Thus, structure and craft as a whole must take a back seat to meaning.

Still, as William Carlos Williams says, free verse does not allow us to escape standard poetry principles.  It's more about deciding when the Poet should start to finish his work, so as to not meddle with the message, rather than what form of poetry is being used or what meter is being followed. 

The artist's role is to fertilize, listen, hear, and then prune the message.  This is true whether the artist is an architect, a computer programmer, or a Poet. 

Dan Sturn learned to listen to his Muse, and after much pruning and fertilization, grew an organic book he titled Bottle in the River.  The pruning process continues and probably will continue to continue until this book is finally on the way to a printer.  After that . . . . well . . . it was Walt Whitman who became addicted to the pruning process.  His collection of poems, Leaves of Grass, was republished nine different times!

"A poem is never finished, only abandoned."
                                                 - Paul Valery (1871 - 1945)

In fact, way too often a Poet will "trim and prune" a poem to the point where it loses the original message from the Muse.  This is why the use of free verse has produced poetry with so much more multivalence that earlier, tightly structured forms.

I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.
                                                                                                                       - Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)

The trick is to learn when to CEASE the pruning process.  So often a song will be so mechanical by the time the recording process is finished, it loses part of its message.  This indeed is why live music is often more enjoyable than the original recording.

One of Dan Sturn’s controversial poems, “"Shag Bark Pruning" ,” establishes what Dan Sturn thought were his beliefs about the pruning process gone too far.  What is very interesting about this poem is that the reviews expressed multivalence in the Readers reactions to the poem.  Some thought it was against form and meter, others felt it was a complaint about people cutting down trees.

The Collaboration

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.
                                                                                                   - Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

True art exudes evidence that the heart has collaborated with the mind.  The Muse and the Poet have worked together to create a whole which is greater than the sum of the parts.  The gestalt is present in all aspects of the art.  All principles of design have been considered.  The work inspires emotion as well as thought.  This is nothing new: preachers of the Gestalt have been holding this philosophy long before the term "gestalt" was coined.

But the essence of Multivalence is that the collaboration is expanded to include the Reader!  What separates Multivalence from other artistic principles is that there are two tripods:  Muse, Artist, Reader; and Listening, Crafting, Reacting.


The Reader

"The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it."
                                                                                                   - Carl Jung (1875 - 1961)

Some Readers bring their own knowledge to the experience.  For example, Readers from the information security profession, knowing Dan’s work in the area, comment that Dan wrote his book as a witness of a new “culture of fear.”  Bottle in a River can be seen as an illustration of “the awareness response” to threats and vulnerabilities.  Associates from Dan’s drum circles see the book as a chronicle of a person’s spiritual transformation.  Some Readers have expressed their belief that the book is an approbation of nature’s cycles, others just a humorous chronicle of Dan’s latest canoe trip. 

One phenomenon that is beginning to explode in modern culture has been made available to us via the concept of the “blog,” where Readers can “post” their reaction to a work of written art.  This is especially true on various writing forums such as writers.com, poetry.com, etc.  The act of Reading is quickly becoming an art in itself, completing the third leg of the How Tripod.

Dan Sturn tries to separate his own reaction phase into two distinct reactions:  one to the craftsmanship, and one to the message.  The first is merely to help the Artist improve in the actual craft of pruning the message.  The second reaction is done more as a method of self-analysis, spiritual study, or just pure fun. 



Integration

"I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings."
                                                                                                                       - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791)

The Poet should also consider himself a Reader of his own poetry.  To Dan Sturn, the meaning of Bottle in a River exists on many different levels.  The meaning that currently resonates the most for Dan is that there are many different meanings, many of which he has not yet discovered.  This is true of all poetry and on a broader sense, all of art. 

One result of Multivalence is that the Listener is often surprised by sincere reactions of Readers.  There is a consistent reaction to Readers among artists that Readers have discovered an “Unintended Message.”  Moreover, it is typical to find “camps” of philosophies about the actual Crafting phase, but most sincere Readers agree to disagree regarding the Message inherent in art.  For example, Wordsworth may put forth an excellent argument about the vices of form and meter, but he will always enjoy the multivalence available in a Shakespearean sonnet.

Multivalent art contains messages that cross cultural, language, and time barriers.  Poetry can be translated into different languages and still be appreciated for it’s meaning regardless of the “craft.”  Buildings designed for worshipers of the Ancient Egyptian Sun God (Ra) continue to have artistic appeal to “Readers” of the 21st Century.  Music written for Renaissance Operas still resonates with listeners of Rock and Roll.

Though Dan Sturn is careful not to make declarations about the quality of art, he does note that “good art” is often accompanied by this Universality.  Meanwhile, he also points out that simplicity of craft is often accompanied by complexity of meanings.  One of the greatest examples of this is the work by Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss).  Though his craft often includes form and meter, the majority of his books are written so that pre-school children can read and understand them; and yet they offer complex Multivalent messages. 


The Ultimate Multivalence

All religious traditions carry the same message of love, compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, and self discipline.
                                                                                                                       - Tenzin Gyatso (the Dalai Lama) (1935 -  )




If one were to back away from the basic meaning of this essay about poetry, and perhaps move from the “literal” into the "sublime," it would be easy to see that Religion is indeed the ultimate Multivalence.  The first art, the first poetry, the first architecture created by man was indeed a connection from the “Reader” to the Muse . . . otherwise referred to as Ra or Jupiter or Yahweh.  It is evident in the violence over interpretation just within the Judeo-Christian-Islam history that the same “poem” can be interpreted in many different ways. 

Meanwhile, there is a growing trend within the global culture of “personalized” religion.  Dedicated students of theology all over the world are beginning to mix meanings from several different religions into an assimilation of practices and beliefs.  This practice could easily be called “Multivalence.”