Up: [[Life Writing]] Course: Writing into Paradox with Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer for 27Powers Created: 2023-08-28 Updated: 2025-02-01 I adore Rosemerry and got so much from this class. 182 people were on the call. ## Defining Paradox Instead of a ‘but’, use an ‘and’. Example: *I hate and I love.* — Catullus Paradox is two truths that seem completely opposite that exist at the same time. ## Gems from [[Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer]] *Pretty poems or anger/rage/fury poems are boring. To be alive is to experience opposition; to know that things are horrible **and** there is also so much beauty in the world. *All of art touches on What does it mean to be alive? If it doesn’t do that, it will be infinitely forgettable. *To be alive is to experience opposition. We live in a world with this full spectrum. THIS is what it is to be alive. *If it doesn’t have opposition, I will not trust it. I’ll know that it’s more propaganda than poem.* Said in response to a guy who writes snarky political poems. A danger in a political poem is getting across an agenda, using the poem as a platform. **Update** In contrast, the day beforeTrump’s second inauguration, she wrote a poem. And the day after, she wrote another. - [Steadfast](https://ahundredfallingveils.com/2025/01/19/steadfast/) - [[Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer]] - [On Inauguration Day, Amy Serves Me Tea](https://ahundredfallingveils.com/2025/01/21/on-inauguration-day-amy-serves-me-tea/) - [[Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer]] ## A Process for Writing into Paradox 1. Make a list of statements that I think are true. 2. Look at each truth and try to find its opposite. I don’t have to believe the opposite truth that I come up with. See [[Examples of Opposites]] 3. Choose one of the paradoxes and explore it. I could write evidence of why something is true, then the opposite and write evidence for that. Or be very curious about the one I don’t think could possibly be true. Ask lots of questions about how it is true. There’s no way to do this wrong. An additional idea from another course with Alison Luterman. If a memory is difficult, use paradox to write about it. For a bitter moment, find the sweet within it. There will be one there. Hold the complexity. ## My Attempt Art is important. It heals and saves. The evidence for this is that every bit of art I ever do is enjoyable while I’m doing it, allowing me to soak in colour and process and sometimes mindfulness. And when I make an artwork it so often slows me down, has me paying attention, gives me insights. But is art really important? Does it really make a difference to a life? Perhaps art is just a pleasure for the privileged and retired. Art is expensive in cost of supplies and in time required. There are artists focused on commercial success, probably a great many of them. Art would save them from financial ruin, but it couldn’t be called healing. Wow, it’s difficult to write an opposite to something I believe to be a truth! If you have trouble meeting the paradox, if you don’t want to know, this is already valuable information that is worth noticing. One of the women in the group said she keeps a list of ‘A few things I won’t be writing about’