Any of you consummate literati out there may recognize that I am borrowing my title from a famous poem by an unlikely but amazing poet, Phillis Wheatley. Her ode to Imagination gives this process incredible weight, saying it is “the leader of the mental train.” In fact, she crowns Imagination as an “imperial queen,” saying that none can imagine her force and power, and that she, bird-like, has the power to wing heavenward “soaring through the air to find the bright abode/Th’ empyreal palace of the thundering God.” That is pretty high praise for Imagination…suggesting it is the most important mental process and that it has the ability to bring us to God’s doorstep. But do we, in this age of instant everything and Siri telling us what we don’t know, give Imagination this power? Or have we become numb to it? I suppose in some sense this post is in response to, or perhaps more accurately in extension of, my dad’s recent post, entitled “Plastic Flowers,” on the importance of imagination and reading. Many of you may balk at that and think that imagination is cultivated in many ways, and it is certainly. But I would argue that so many of our modern experiences cut off our imaginative process. Consider the difference between reading a book and seeing the movie. How many of us have read a book and had an idea in our minds of what the main character looks like and what the world of the story looks like? Probably all of us to some extent. Now, do you remember the moment that you went to see the movie for that same book? Was the actor exactly the way you had them pictured in your mind? No! Of course not, because your idea was unique and a product of your imagination. Now consider, from the moment you saw the movie of the first book, did you imagine the main character as your version or the movie actor when you moved on to reading the second and third book in the series? That was a rhetorical question. We all know the answer, don’t we? The character will almost certainly be replaced with the movie actor in your mind’s eye. Case in point: Harry Potter. The books are wonderful and rich with story and imagery. My daughter adores them and I have great respect for Rowling’s command of the craft. However, once the first movie came out, I suspect every child had a picture of Daniel Radcliffe in their mind as they continued reading instead of whoever Harry had been to them before.
This idea of Imagination is interesting to me, as a teacher and a mother, but especially as a writer. What engages this ability in us that Wheatley is speaking of? Why does it seem it is being gradually lost in our younger generations? I have a student, well I should say ‘had’ a student since she has just graduated, who taught me a lot about this subject. I had never thought about the idea that ‘imagination’ could look different to different people…and by look I truly mean that what one person visually experiences when they imagine is likely different than another person’s experience. This student, we’ll call her Elizabeth, shared with me that when she reads it is like she is watching a movie. Literally. She sees every scene unfold and every character in clear visual relief. When I really thought about it, I realized that I see books that way too, although hers sounded like it was in 3D Technicolor, so maybe more vivid than mine? We were curious about this. We asked the class at large what it ‘looked like’ in their minds when they read a book…did they see it on the ‘big screen’ of their Imagination too? To my surprise many of them said no, but when probed further, they also admitted that they hadn’t read much and didn’t like reading. For many in that camp, they also said that their parents didn’t read much or that they hadn’t been read to very much as children. In contrast, Elizabeth is an avid reader and so am I. So there it is: The mind is like a muscle. It must be exercised. There is a reason I am terrible at sit-ups and don’t like them—I don’t do them very often! If I did 100 sit-ups a day they would become easy and I would probably learn to love them, or at least appreciate what they do for me. The same is true of Imagination. We are required to use it or lose it I think. And as a writer, I implore you to use it. Books are a partnership between writer and reader, a conversation if you will. The writer suggests an idea and the reader considers it and agrees to join in that idea. Without this symbiosis a book is just words washing over the reader’s eyes. Readers have power! The writer only does half of the work—a book is dead without the reader. So…Read. Engage. Imagine.
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Wendy Picard GorhamWendy lives and works in the midst of words everyday--English teacher by profession, and writer by passion! Archives
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