About Logos Differentia

Robert Hieger
Robert Hieger

So who am I? How often we ask ourselves this question. I grew up in a family entrenched in the performing arts, my late father a concert violinist and my mother, a concert pianist. As we grew up, my siblings and I branched out into experimental theatre and opera. I continue to perform in New York theatrical venues and tour abroad to this day.

Owing to economic concerns, I have since expanded my repertoire to include web development/design skills, earning my Bachelor of Science Summa Cum Laude from the CUNY Baccalaureate for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies in 2011, and most recently, my Master of Science in Integrated Digital Media from NYU Tandon School of Engineering in January 2017.  I also continue to pursue studies in mobile development/design.

Throughout all my studies, however, my focus has remained in the arts, spoken, written and performed. To this end, I have created this web site to post the poetry I have created in years past and hope to continue adding new poetry and/or prose as they are written.

Why Logos Differentia?

Clearly, when one engages in creative writing of any sort, the aim is to express differently—to express that unique thing that she or he alone can share with the reading audience. But is it enough merely to share that which is uniquely yours with a willing audience participant? For me, this an important point of distinction. Though being different is important, being truthful, being pure, being clear in what one says is equally, if not more important. The composer, Arnold Schoenberg once made the same distinction with relation to musical composition. He said that the most important thing was not aesthetic beauty, though, of course, one wants musical composition to be aesthetically pleasing. Rather, most important, in his view, was organization—comprehensibility and clarity. In my own further distillation of this idea, I would say that one additional ingredient in this recipe is unflinching honesty.

Of course, yet another element enters the picture of what I mean when I allude to different usage of words, differentiation. The other, and equally important thing, to me, is that I proceed from alternative-mindedness, awareness of the world in which I live, and the effect that my thoughts and deeds have upon my fellow human beings and other creatures—in short, ethics. Therefore, every action I take, every word I write, is in some way geared toward expressing and calling out those things in our lives which produce a cognitive dissonance, and those social and political constructs that prevent every person from being her best self, the best person she can be.

Giving voice to the cry of protest is but a first step. While necessary, it is just the outcry that alerts and confirms similar feeling within others. The ideal to which I reach (and most probably only seldom achieve) is pointing the way to, and being an example of an alternative to that which I decry.

I am by no means a highly-schooled poet. But I am learning. And I do have a long relationship with writing, both creative and nonfiction. My hope is that as I continue posting on this site, what I have to say will be distilled into an ever-clearer voice that can provide insight, comfort, and dare I say it, enjoyment to those who view it.