These days I'm trying to use the language as though it were a piece of wood, and I craft it, I hone it down. I sand it, I polish it, and I make sure there are no cracks, no extra pieces or frills that might fall off. I try to keep it as compact as possible.

				-- Suzanne Vega
				"The Cutting Edge Of Folk"

What Suzanne Vega is describing above is minimalism. Minimalism invests itself in the stripping away of unnecessary language that might interfere with the audiences own interpretation of the piece. Whether it be art, drama, music, or prose, the removal of the artist from the work or the abscence of a distinct and controlling narrative voice is the main goal. Suzanne Vega, in her lyrics, accomplishes what Raymond Carver accomplished with his prose. Though differences arise between the two artists--resulting primarily from the shift from prose to lyric--one can see parallels in the two technical styles that make them both minimalist writers. The most important factor is, as mentioned above, the stripping away of an omniscient narrative voice that is usually present to guide the reader or listener in what they should think about the piece. Whether it be through a tendency toward the first person narrative or through strong character based narratives and imagery based lyrics, both writers work to take themselves out of the story and present precise moments in time encapsulated within the narrative or lyric and free from narrator interpretation. This style leaves the pieces open to multiple interpretations and experience that an audience (reader or listener) might be bringing to the piece.

Carver in Where I'm Calling From has a tendency to use the first person narrative. While not all the stories are in first person, a majority of them are. This use of the first person allows Carver to step back from the story and have less of an interpretive influence. What emerges is an importance of individual perception. The narrator in "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" says that "Terri...seemed anxious" (178), when Mel is telling his story about an old couple from the hospital. The first person narrator does not presume to have insight into each characters feelings and emotions.

Because the narrator, himself, is a character within the scene, he is only capable of using his perceptions to interpret what is going on and therefore can only guess at what Terri might be feeling based on what he's picking up from her. If Carver or a controlling narrator were present within the story and guiding the reader, we would know that Terri "is anxious" not "seems anxious." A first person narrative does not allow Carver to have such control and therefore we can only deal with perceptions.

Vega, in her lyrics, also has a tendency towards the first person narrative with much the same effect as Carver. Again, because the character is involved in his own narrative, the character can only work with individual perceptions. In "Luka" a song about an abused child--written from the child's point of view--Luka wonders:

		I think it's because I'm clumsy
		I try not to talk too loud	
		Maybe it's because I'm crazy	
		I try not to act to proud
		(32,  Lns 10-13)	

The child is unsure of why he is abused and struggles to find a way to make it stop. Because the child is unsure, the listener is unsure and confused. Again, there is the effect of only having the perception of the child with which to deal. If the omniscient narrative voice of Vega were present, we would know that the father or mother is an alcoholic and out of work or something like that and that's why he is abused. We never get those details because the story is coming from the child and not from a more powerful and knowing voice.

The minimalist details that emerge from the first person narrative have the effect of making the reader feel part of the story. We only get fragments of details and have to rely on what the narrator himself might know. Further, both Carver and Vega throw the directly into the middle of a scene without any kind of background or direction. One finds that she is immediately put on guard and questioning the situation.

Carver, in his story "Gazebo," makes the reader feel as if she is walking in on a couple in the middle of a fight:

	That morning she pours Teacher's over my belly and
	licks it off.  That afternoon she tries to jump out
	the window. (139)

We don't know anything about this couple: time, place, situation. We don't know why she is trying to jump out of the window. Carver doesn't spend a lot of time giving the reader background information and guiding us through. ie: "In a small motel in the middle of summer a couple who drink too much were in the midst of a battle over the husbands infidelity..." This would be too much for Carver's style to reveal to us. Instead, as the story moves on, we get fragments of their lives revealed through someone directly involved in the situation therefore leaving the reader at the mercy of one persons perceptions. And there is always the question of reliability. One cannot know for sure if what she is being told is actually the truth. Again, we are at the mercy of someone elses perception of a situation.

Similarly in "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," fragments of Mel's life are revealed through his conversation with the narrator. It is clear, though that all we are getting is what the narrator is hearing and not necessarily what is actually going on in Mel's head. There is no narrator who explains "why" Mel is feeling the way he does about his wife--we just know that he hates her. The reader makes inferences based on fragments that are revealed in conversation. One assumes that Mel hates his wife because of a messy divorce and he resents paying alimony but at the same time there is an underlying feeling that he is still in love with her though one can never know for sure.

Similarly, Vega tends to present an encapsulated moment that can disorient the audience:

			It's a one time thing
			It just happens
			a lot
			Walk with me
			And we will see
			What we have got...(12, Lns 1-6).

Again, the reader is looking in on a brief moment and is disoriented which brings up questions about what is going on. The narrator is not present in this introduction telling us that the woman is walking through the park on a cold afternoon after she's broken up with her boyfriend and feeling really bad. The reader can only wonder: "what happens a lot?" Even in the end of the song questions still remain:

			And something is cracking
			I don't know where
			Ice on the sidewalk
			Brittle branches in the air (12, Lns 16-20).

We don't know what or who is cracking because we just get brief images from a character who is obviously confused and hurt though we are unsure as to why.

It is through Vega's sharp images that things are revealed to the audience. Unlike Carver who tends to be very character based and uses lots of dialogue to reveal the fragments of information we get about his characters, Vega cannot rely on that. Because her medium is lyrically based, dialogue becomes difficult--though at times she does incorporate it--it is not the best way for her to reveal things about her characters. She relies, instead, on short, almost montage like images. In a song like "Freeze Tag," she invokes one's feelings about the past:

			the sun is fading fast
			upon the slides into the past
			upon the swings of indecision
			in the wintertime (13, Lns 3-6).

Though there is no narrator telling the reader what is going on, the images invoke an emotional response about the past, missed opportunity and even death of something with the line "...in the wintertime..." It is left completely open however for the reader to decide how she feels about it.

It is because of these short images that come out as part of Vega's style that it has been argued that all poetry is minimalist because it deals with short, fragmented lines. This is untrue, however because the primary factor is the absence of narrator and poetry or lyric has not always been absent of a controlling narrative voice. Wayne C. Booth in The Rhetoric of Fiction talks about Homer and that "{in} the opening lines of the Iliad...we are told...precisely what the tale is to be about: 'the anger of Peleus' son Achilleus and its devastation.' We are told directly that we are to care more about the Greeks than the Trojans." (Booth 4). It is not just the poet Homer who has had this kind of influence. One can look at poetry from Virgil, Ovid, Milton, all the way to Eliot and beyond where there is a narrative voice telling the reader what she should think. In Eliot's "The Waste Land" he breaks scenes up with narration asking questions such as:

		What are the roots that clutch, what branchs grow
		Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man
		You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
		A heap of broken images. . .(Lns 19-22)

During these breaks, the narrator's voice becomes evident as he tells the reader, not just what to think, but also asking the questions that for someone like Carver or Vega the reader might be capable of asking herself. Therefore, not all poetry is minimalistic because there has been a strong narrative influence throughout poetry and lyric. Vega is one who has stripped that voice away.

Without a narrative presence telling the reader what to think about a situation, the reader must use her own logic and rationality to interpret the scene as she would anything else. Carver might, himself, argue that his stories are not meant to be interpreted or at least that there is no way of interpreting them. In "Why Don't You Dance" the young woman is confused as to the man's actions and is looking for some reasoning in them:

	She kept talking.  She told everyone.  There was more to it,
	and she was trying to get it talked out.  After a time, she quit
	trying. (161)

One can see how the woman, through telling and retelling the story is trying to interpret it and eventually must give up because she finds no interpretation for the man's actions. Perhaps this is Carver's reaction to his own stories and perhaps he is connecting that to the bigger picture of life--that there is no interpretation.

Vega, however, looks at her lack of narrative influence in a different way than Carver. Her lack of narrative influence isn't because, as Carver might think, there is no interpretation, but because she wants to leave it open for multiple interpretations. Vega has said that she writes from the part of herself that is similar to others. I take this to mean that she uses minimalism to make her work accessible. The idea of common experience can be seen in "Ironbound/Fancy Poultry" as she focuses on the woman who "...stops as the stall/Fingers the ring/Opens her purse and feels a longing..."(33, Lns 34-36). There is a common feeling--the feeling of longing or feeling of being trapped. It is easy to think of our own circles that we might feel trapped within.

To that degree, Carver's stories are not so completely uninterpretable. I think that even within Carver's narratives there is room for common experience to be brought to bare on the story. In "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" there is the feeling of lost love that all readers may have experienced and the anger of relationships ending as well as the complications of relationships. Though there may not be a direct interpretation of that particular story and we may not know enough about the characters situations to make judgments about them, we know enough about ourselves and our own situations to perhaps bring a piece of ourselves to the story. That's what minimalism allows.

Suzanne Vega has never to my knowledge mentioned that Raymond Carver is an influence on her work but she has been described as minimalistic by others. It is clear to see that there are certainly parallels between their work. There is a clear absence of narrative influence over the reader's interpretations. Where differences arise, they are only because of the shift of mediums--the result, however, tends to be the same. The reader is left with an encapsulated moment that is left open for the reader to bring herself to the narrative and find her own experiences within it. Because of the way the work is presented, I find it much more realistic than any realist could hope to conjure up. We are constantly having to make judgments with just a minimal amount of information provided to us through conversations and perceptions. Reality is not life so much as minimalism is life.

By Wendy Marie Chapman

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