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Negative space is important. When I teach students to read critically I advise them to look for what the author isn’t saying just as carefully as for what he or she is.

Aaron Belz

After the first few readings in comedy venues I did begin to write for laughs. There’s something so gratifying about stimulating laughter.
AARON BELZ

Laugh Laughter Reading Venue Writing
Poetry is a way for me to explore a tingly feeling, to let it play itself out, and also to map it. I feel like I’m making little star maps when I write poems.
AARON BELZ

Explore Map Play Poetry Star Writing
Writing essays and teaching composition have helped me immensely in writing poetry, because they’ve forced me to focus on the structure of ideas.
AARON BELZ

Composition Essay Force Help Idea Poetry Teaching Writing
The brands with which we surround ourselves prop us up, make us feel sexy and beautiful, when in reality we’re pretty dumpy creatures.
AARON BELZ

Beautiful Brand Ourselves Pretty Reality Sexy
We just watch anything speed by. To stop and really ponder what a product label says, or the tagline on a TV commercial, might be inherently silly. Those are things that are almost designed to be thrown away.
AARON BELZ

Label Ponder Product Silly Watches
I don’t really want to write fiction at all. I don’t see why fiction is necessary when we have real life already confusing enough.
AARON BELZ

Confusing Fiction Life Necessary Real Writing
Surprise keeps the reader awake. The only alternative is to continue saying what the reader is expecting. What fun is that?
AARON BELZ

Alternative Awake Expect Fun Surprise
Whenever I do a comedy show I still just read poems, some of which are intentionally funny and some of which are just bizarre. The mix seems to work well.
AARON BELZ

Bizarre Comedy Funny Intention Poem Show Work
Negative space is important. When I teach students to read critically I advise them to look for what the author isn’t saying just as carefully as for what he or she is.
AARON BELZ

Author Critical Important Negative Space Student Teach
I want to leave my readers with a sequence of ideas/phrases that makes them question something they’d taken for granted. Or that confuses them to the point that they laugh, but contains one or two phrases/lines that stick in their minds.
AARON BELZ

Idea Laugh Mind Phrase Sequence Taken Two
Nothing is as easy or natural as consumer brands want us to think – no problem is as resolvable. Your hair will fall out, eventually. Yet we do have these brands, and we line our shelves with them. There’s an inherent irony.
AARON BELZ

Consumer Easy Fall Hair Natural Thinking

Negative space is important. When I teach students to read critically I advise them to look for what the author isn’t saying just as carefully as for what he or she is.

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Negative space is important. When I teach students to read critically I advise them to look for what the author isn’t saying just as carefully as for what he or she is.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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