Robert,
You are on track. And at the same time, not to counter, poetry needs to go where it is welcome. Remember that stupid program of putting poems on busses and subways?
Carol,
I know what you mean, Maybe what is most important is that a person should do what they have the spirit for when it comes to the practical side of what to do for a living. I think you are saying that if you weren't working would you write much of the time?
Katy,
I didn't know your predicament.
The idea I am trying to explain is that any art is an equation: Time = art. The art won't happen unless time is spent, and often sacrifices are made one way or another.
Here is a string of thoughts;
1.To live simply is often not possible anymore.
2. Sometime time is spent earning money to support other needs which cost money. (example; spending money on clothes which are appropriate for a particular job.)
3. A few years ago, we didn't have ISP's to pay for, or inkjet cartridges, or cell phones, which some of us use instead of landlines.
4. There is a trap in careers; people think they will get ahead and THEN have to time to write, but then things happen, gas goes up, the cost of food has gone up 40% recently, the neighborhood goes sour or the wife wants a bigger hut.
5. Wives. Husbands. Children. Do they come first, or does the art?
6. In the art world, there is a saying: You grow when you show. Whenever you stop doing the art, when you start again, the level of the art picks up where you left off. So the rule is, write every day, or every week. Skip five, ten years, and time, not you, goes forward.
7. Just to pick someone everyone knows, think of how much time Shakespeare spent actually writing down with ink on paper all that he wrote. Add it up and break it down to how many hours a day--written by hand on paper with one of those old quill type pens, whatever it was.
8. Professors with tenure scare me because they know stuff. This isn't new: art is in the discovery. The creation of a little style in poetry is for nitwits: there are higher levels to go to, forms to challenge.
9. How many decisions have you made for life circumstances that relate specifically to writing poetry? There are also many wonderful distractions out there for all of us. Have you given any up?
10. I think it is far more admirable for a creative person to be creative with their career, such as having their own business or doing something dynamic rather than intellectual passivity.
Wilbur says, I read recently somewhere, maybe it is best not to live entirely for poetry. We all have to have lives to live out from under rocks, but we find our own levels, don't we?
TJ
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