In the Shadow of Barolatry
 

I've decided to delete this post.

Perhaps, N, because there is no perception without contrast?

I guess I'd say: write because you find it rewarding and let your successes be a bonus.

Besides, the world will likely have fallen apart in less than 200 years time as so much more of it become uninhabitable, crops and economies fail, terrestrial and marine ecosystems collapse, wars rage and millions of refugees try to find somewhere cooler to live and so on. People will likely have more pressing things to think about than poetry.

But yes, if it's that important to you that there's at least some small chance that you'll write poetry that will still be read and admired in 200+ years, and even be considered better than Shakespeare's, and you believe that no poetry written now can achieve that, then stopping makes sense.

"I feel assured I should write from the mere yearning and fondness I have for the Beautiful even if my night's labours should be burnt every morning, and no eye ever shine upon them." —John Keats

You aspire to be great, listen to the great.

You will know if you have to write.
If the language chafes inside you, and it becomes more painful NOT to write, than to write, if you have an almost-instinctual need to write, then you will write. Greatness, and influence, and who will remember you, and remembering anyway, will be utterly meaningless in that moment, they are for afterwards.

Certainly, it is easier to theorise than to make poems. And maybe if literature gives you no joy because of some agon, maybe you should try listening to the language itself, and seeing if there is anything to hear.

But if you can rationalise yourself out of writing then all well & good. There are a hundred more healthy things to do than making poems.

N, writing is not a competition. I love Shakespeare's work, and I don't blame him for writing well. I am just glad that he was able to write as much as he did. For encouragement, I prefer to think of Dickinson, however, who was unknown and undervalued in her own lifetime, but just kept writing anyway. It is almost a miracle that her work survived, but it is now acknowledged to be blazingly memorable. I wouldn't wish it to be lost to us, just because Shakespeare predated her. We can't know what the future holds. We can't even judge our own work accurately. If we like writing poetry, we write it.

Susan

If you have trouble seeing a need for poetry that doesn't outdo Shakespeare, then, yeah, you should find something else to do.

What Max said. If you want to write - write. If you don't want to write - don't. Wringing your hands on the Sphere because you're unhappy about the poetic climate - when nobody knows you and there is no apparent link to anything you've published - comes across as juvenile.

And, oh yeah, it's "bardolatry", not "barolatry".

"Memorable" is a good phrase but I think it sells Dickinson short. At times, I know her to be the greatest lyric poet in the language; beside Shakespeare.

I misspelled it. I noticed that after.