writing. You can then ‘run’ with the referent: that is, let it suggest all sorts
of different directions, some of which you will follow, some of which you
will discard.
Let us think about each kind of referent listed above in turn, though
these categories in practice overlap (and referents will generally run into
each other, like different coloured clothes which have been washed
together). An object referent might be a tree or a book; an event, a quarrel
or a lunch-party; an idea, the essence of time or the status of truth; an
emotion, anger or joy; a political issue, environmental pollution or the
treatment of refugees. And, of course, you might create a poem or fiction
based on several referents. In fact a central issue in literary theory has
been the notion that any text is intrinsically political, because it is always
written from a particular ideological position. In other words, all texts—
because they are ideological—have a political referent, even if it is not
very overt.
Exercise 2 asks you to write a creative text based on the mirror, the map
or the machine (all of which are object referents). Your creative text can be
a poem, a description or a short sketch: the form you feel will most suit
your ideas. This exercise is designed to show you that almost any referent
can be milked for ideas. Of course, when you are running with a referent,
you will also need writing technique to shape your text. As I said before,
most writing is a combination of language-based and referent-based
strategies. If you play with language it produces ideas which you can then
consider, if you begin with an idea it has to manifest itself in language, so
you may find yourself moving backwards and forwards between the two
strategies. For example, you might come up with an idea and work with
that on one page, and then you might play with language on another page,
and then bring the two together.
THE MEDIUM IS THE MIRROR
The mirror is a powerful referent because it has many symbolic, cultural
and philosophical resonances. We look in the mirror and see ourselves
reflected back, but not always in a way we expect or want. There is a mis-
match between ourselves and our mirror images: they are never identical
to each other. This produces a ‘split self ’, the implications of which are the-
orised in more detail in Chapter 8.The mirror also projects society’s
expectations of how we (women in particular) should look: expectations
we can never fully meet. But the concept of the mirror is also influential
much more broadly, for example, in the way we think about history, since
different eras often reflect each other (though this mirror may also be a
Playing with language, running with referents 19