I finish the long post below and then went to read Josh Corey's blog and cracked up. Yes, I suppose we're all a little self-absorbed aren't we? But then we're poets. Last fall in my lit seminar I wanted to scream every time someone called Anne Sexton a selfish narcissist. Don't we sort of have to be a bit narcissistic to write poems at all and not be using our talents to cure cancer or something like that. Isn't all art just a little narcissistic?
I don't mind reading about other people's process or submission trials. It sort of makes me feel a little less alone. Like someone else gets up and obsesses over all the same things I do everyday. Especially since no one immediately around me surely does this sort of stuff. He has some good points though, as if we're supposed to non-chalantly look as if we're not trying all that hard, that these poems just appear and find their way into publication w/out us trying. Something SO not true. Yes, it's about the poems, but it's also about getting them out there. Maybe not success or fame, but AUDIENCE of some sort.
