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.
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.
Comments