What have you learned from involvement with poetry?
 

A little background, I've been writing poetry somewhat consistently since 2012. In 2014 and 2017 I put together two non-serious books, and in 2020 took a stab at putting together a more serious work. Not to sell, more as a compilation for my own poetry collection.

When I started the project it was primarily just for fun, something to do, but as I continued it took on a life of it's own, and the finished product ended up being pretty cool.

But what I didn't anticipate at the beginning was how much the project would teach me. About writing poetry, about publishing, about the act of being a poet, and in some ways about people themselves.

That's all intentionally vague as I want to use it as a lead-in for this discussion, rather than spelling out my experiences straight-away.

I'm curious what you've learned from being a poet. Not necessarily about writing poetry itself, but it could be that. More generally, how the act of being a writer and engaging with the genre has affected you.

When things are going well and the words are flowing, it's because I've learned to focus on being a writer, as opposed to talking about being a writer. When the words are not flowing - and they're now right now - I get unpleasant.

Unfortunately, I don't have the the time to write these days, so talking about being a writer has to suffice.

There is absolutely nothing I'd love more than to sit down and write all day over coffee, but e-mail with excessive flair will have to do.

Hi,

I am a visual poet, so my work is hybrid (and most of my income from creative practice is through illustration/commissions which don't always reflect my personal interests, although that world is converging a little at the moment).

In terms of commercial poetry/art, there's a whole business angle to it (promotion, intellectual property law, freelancing culture) that I have learned.

In terms of craft - technical expertise - my involvement with poetry has taught me to listen, to be able to 'read' poetry through lenses/technical perspectives and to unpick them (although I am still not the best at this).

In terms of critical awareness and the ability to understand my own shortcomings and 'take' critique, then working on poetry as part of a wider community has been invaluable.

I think that being a poet or an artist is not a cultural trope, but a vocation. And probably a vocation regardless of whether it is your main source of income or not. But I also know that the more I feel secure about my knowledge, the less I actually 'know'.

Thank you for asking such a great question. Oh, I hope so much that this thread gets many answers. I'd love to know what others' think.

Sarah-Jane

Sometimes I forget that this side of it exists, as I've never been serious about selling my work. By profession I'm a software developer, and I can't justify taking my eyes off of the field long enough. The financial return of writing just doesn't seem to be there (at least for me).

This was one of my main takeaways from the project I mentioned (although not the exact angle). I figured out that poetry is fundamentally words and expression. And that everybody, regardless of writing or linguistic skill, uses words and wants to be heard.

More than writing, I love language and hearing people tell their stories, no matter who, no matter what the story. Some of my favorite writing comes from amateurs as there is an unfiltered rawness that you just don't get in a major bookstore.

So I learned to listen. To be the person I wanted for myself as a poet, but for others.

I'll add another point then give it a few days.

I'm now also of the view that most of us don't really know how to appreciate art. The common line of thinking is that poetry is underappreciated, but I think it's more the case that many of us are just incapable of seeing the beauty in it. From this perspective, those who can appreciate the written word are privileged, while those who can't are missing out.

Those who've appreciated my work the most were universally other poets, while those who weren't poets didn't really know how to read into my writing or give weak areas the benefit of the doubt. For the poets, some of my pieces were life changing, for the non-poets, some of it was too unfamiliar and foreign. Outside of their comfort zone.

This is why when we shift over to an area like popular music, it's generally lyrics and melodies with obvious mass appeal that make money. Anything that approaches daring is going to divide people out of the gate. So if we're talking poetry with themes that are far beyond everyday experience, the audience is narrow by definition.

Once I hit this realization I pretty much gave up advertising my work in any way, beyond to other poets, and stopped selling my book. When I was alone with my writing I didn't think twice about it, but as soon as I had an audience I realized that some found the themes a little too heavy. I ended up not wanting some people I knew to read it.

Nick, I hate to break it to you, but there is no Tiara Fairy going around crowning Good Work in ANY artistic field—be it poetry or popular music—with the money, accolades and attention it deserves.

You can blame other people's ignorance for their lack of appreciation for what you do, if that makes you feel better about the fact that most people have no interest in reading poetry. But it sounds both naïve and narcissistic to expect the universe to provide your favored material with fans, simply because you deem it More Worthy of Fame, Glory, and Financial Reward than the stuff that is currently receiving those things.

There's no escaping this fact: Artists who want to have an appreciative audience have to do the necessary self-promotion work. They have to seek and seize opportunities to build and retain a fan base. The Tiara Fairy won't do it for them simply due to their work's intrinsic merit.

Yes, some fields (such as popular music) offer more robust existing infrastructure for audience-building than other fields (such as poetry). But there's no escaping the fact that successful artists spend a lot of time, attention, and effort on things other than creating the art.

People who are not willing or able to work hard at the business side of their artistic careers have ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHT to sit around bitching about the fame and financial success of those who do, or to sneer at them as somehow less virtuous, artistically speaking, because they aren't devoting themselves purely to creation.

Show me someone who is successful in any artistic field—yes, even popular music!—and I will show you someone who would snort at the idea that their success came easily. Successful artists work damned hard at figuring out how to put what they do in front of the people with whom it will resonate. They also invest a lot of time and money in hiring (or marrying) the right people to work damned hard on their behalf.

And usually they have to spend the majority of their time working on things that aren't what they really want to do, but for which there is demand, just to pay the bills. If producing the kind of work that other people want to pay for sounds like selling out, maybe selling shouldn't be your main measure of artistic success.

But if money IS an important measure of artistic success to you—and it certainly sounds like it is, because you keep mentioning sales—you will need to spend far more time promoting your work than you do creating it. Or, if you can't stand the heat of the marketplace's supply and demand dynamics, I would advise you to get out of the economic kitchen.

It sounds like you are opting for the latter in practice, but are still theorizing about artistic success in monetary terms. I don't think trying to have it both ways is going to be a recipe for happiness.

I hope these thoughts are helpful.

I believe you might have misinterpreted my posts, but I do appreciate the comments.

I've never been interested in monetary success vis-a-vis my writing, and I figured if I ever was I would have to put the effort in, in the exact way you mention. However, because poetry is particularly unpopular I've never seriously entertained the idea. I write for myself, my family, and my friends, and that's about it. Any selling or promotion I have done was more akin to a social experiment than related to finance.

I make a comfortable salary, and a layoff without being able to find work would be disastrous. So I'm pretty much forced to keep my skills up to date, year after year (no real time to write / promote).

When I mentioned .. people don't have the ability to appreciate poetry .. that's not said with any amount of angst. But rather I'm trying to turn the popular notion of poetry being underappreciated on it's head.

I've seen poets who got down on themselves because of the fact, but I don't think poetry is particularly disrespected by any means. But rather, it's just a niche genre, that the overwhelming amount of people out there don't understand.

Nick, There's an interesting question here, but with each post it gets harder to find. You began the thread with four paragraphs about yourself, and you've written a lot about yourself here since. If you wanted Eratos to focus on your question, I hope it's helpful that I point out a possible reason for what has developed instead. And I hope the following addresses the question you meant to ask.

One reason we read is to learn, so its reasonable to expect that writers know things. I suspect, though, that writing teaches us little or nothing that isn't about writing, and that what we learn from others' writing, its writers learned otherhow. (Related: we don't tend to learn from lit because its writers know things others don't, but because of the ways they express those things.)

Regular writing, though, may give us better access to what we know, just as, for instance, keeping a dream journal seems to give us better access to our dreams.

FWIW.

Language and imagination are huge kingdoms that are open to us all.

I have been fascinated by music, numbers, words, myth and magic as long as I can remember. Figurative painting came later.

I returned to poetry and song when my life had otherwise foundered, and as such it is the rock on which I stand. A religion without the religion. An apprenticeship without any one master. A life-long education.

For me song and poetry are equally good. Neither has my full allegiance. My feeling is that the written word is good, the spoken word is better, and the sung word is best. I start with the words almost always, and often find music later.

We each have to find the idiom that suits us on each separate occasion. Nothing is simpler, or more difficult, but it’s a challenge that is always rewarding.

Intuition and gut-feeling are aptitudes that are suited to the study of poetry, and the study of poetry promotes these aptitudes even more. This is a permanent blessing. And I have been inspired by the fellowship of poets, not least by that of Eratosphere.

Duncan

My involvement with poetry has taught me that it's almost never a good idea to boast that people find my work life changing. Some of what you've posted here feels an awful lot like a grievance in search of a literary theory.

That I'm a girl :)

Definitely not my intent to boast or grieve, but I can see how it was read that way. I'll chalk it up to inexperience with this forum.

I hoped to give others space to post in this thread, but that doesn't seem to be happening so I'll add another post.

IMO, poetry is a unique genre in that it's pure literary expression, and a bit difficult by default. In other art forms like painting and music there isn't much demanded of the consumer, and when there is it tends to be a turn off.

But in poetry almost everything is difficult and demands that the reader show up and pay attention. This isn't something that we're particularly good at, because by and large most of us have more important things to do.

For myself as a reader of poetry, I'm more of an anthropologist than poet. I'm fascinated by how people express themselves in the form, what they say, the themes that repeat, and so on. And as a writer of poetry I've found a great deal of freedom to express myself in ways that I couldn't have done in any other form.

To me that's what makes poetry such a beautiful art form, there is a touch of divinity in it. But I think many of us have a tough time seeing the written word from that perspective. To many, any type of book is just a bunch of stale words on a page. On a good day we're usually just hoping that what we read validates our preexisting worldview, including in poetry.

I'm not angsty about that by any means, but the best experiences I've had as a poet were absolutely when I was engaging with other poets. These were usually people who had a natural appreciation of the form. Granted, I know others are out there, but admittedly I haven't looked for them very hard.

This is one of the reasons I've shown up at this forum. I'm raising a family and don't have the time to become active in my community, so this place is one of the few outlets I've found to even talk about poetry. Most of my immediate contacts just aren't that interested.

To put this in terms of the thread topic (in a more neutral way), this is all to say that, IMO, poetry is a specialist field, and maybe even something like a club.

Hi Nick,
I think you've hit the nail on the head there. One thing I've learned is that, generally speaking, only other poets are interested. While my family and my friends all know I write poetry, no one ever asks me what I've written lately / have I had anything published recently / are you working on a poem at the moment... etc.

My husband shows an interest and is very supportive, but we're the only ones in the house now so he has no choice but to listen when I read him something I've written! ;)

I'm not making light of your question, far from it, but as you also say "This is one of the reasons I've showed up at this forum" I can totally relate to that. We're all "birds of a feather", and it's so good to have this community of Eratosphere so that we can share our work with others who definitely are interested in what we do.

I've learned a lot of other things too, about the actual craft of writing poetry, receiving and offering constructive criticism, and that my passion from the age of seven or eight has remained with me, and always will.

Raising a family is a full-time occupation, but I hope you'll manage to find enough time to indulge your passion too!

Jayne

:). My wife isn't that interested. She likes that I write, but I try not to drone on.

These days I couldn't bother her even if I wanted to. With a two and a half year old, and nine month old I've had very little time to write.

A number of my friends have been interested to know that I write poetry, and a select few have wanted to read it. But I've found better results when I leave it at that and let people come to me, rather than vice versa. Too much self-promotion leaves a bad taste in people's mouths.

Nick, Poets often weaken their work by using generalizations unsupported by specific details, or by relying on abstractions instead of concrete imagery. When you say that you as a reader enjoy "the themes that repeat" in poetry, you might not be showing us a great deal, but you are at least offering something specific about your interactions with the art. On the other hand, when you describe poetry as "pure literary expression," you are sinking in the quicksand of abstraction. The phrase is essentially meaningless. It says nothing about what distinguishes poetry from other, presumably less pure, literature such as essays, plays, novels, and short stories.

If your poems rely heavily on abstraction, that might be something you want to work on. You might find it helpful to read some of the poets you admire with special attention to the concrete images in their poems, the evocations not of intangible concepts, but of things a reader can see, hear, touch, smell, and taste.

And if child care is a major feature of your daily life, you might think about way of incorporating poetry into that routine. It's not to early in their lives for you to be reading or reciting poems to them as you bathe them, dress them, feed them, burp them, or put them to bed. You'll be enriching their lives and also affirming your connection to the art you care about.

(By the way, speaking as one with no skin in the game since I have zero talent in music or painting, I think you're way off base when you say that those arts demand less of their audiences than poetry does.)

It's interesting that you managed to touch on this without seeing my writing. This is a major critique I've gotten of my work (from a former member here).

Painting and music can, and do. But it's a lot easier to get away with passive consumption of music and visual art, than it is writing. That's more along the lines of what I was getting at.

To consume poetry you pretty much have to show up. But it's not hard to listen or view without making much of an effort.

This is an interesting question. (Hopefully) without descending to the usual waffle of an Grand Artistic Statement, I think that engaging with poetry has taught me, at its most basic level, another language with which to perceive and understand the world. A lot of my poetry is an attempt to capture a very particular feeling or moment in time -- the question I'm always asking myself is "what is the essential kernel of this [whatever it is]?". And in looking for that kernel I've often found that it comes down to specificity and truth, with as much other stuff pared away as I can manage. I don't always manage well, of course. But I try.

Beyond that, on a practical level, I think it's improved my memorization abilities (I often write a poem over and over in my head long before it makes it to a page), and the whole publication process has taught me a lot about perseverance and thickened my skin.