I don't know about the rest of you, but I started writing (at a very young age) because I wanted to be heard. For me the act/art of writing lies in this dialogue between the writer and the reader. I was considered very promising when I was young, was recruited by writing programs etc, and became so disillusioned with the "poetry world" that I essentially stopped writing poetry and became a visual artist.
What disillusioned me? At that time, metrical verse could not be heard. I had great teachers, all praised my "voice", all encouraged (or demanded, sometimes) that I lose the rhyme and meter so I could be published. This was before the "New Formalism" hoo hah happened. I was outraged, that I literally could NOT get publiushed (in any place that mattered to me) and so, being young, I said "stuff it" and moved on.
I continued to write occasiuonal verse; for anniversaries, for funerals, for weddings, for seduction, whatever, and all that got heard, one-on-one, and this was good. Only recently did I realize formal, metrical poetry was possible again, when Annie Finch sent me to this place.
So my experience in some sense parallels Tom's, in the sense that I grew disenchanted with the po-biz and turned my back on the organized manifestations of it. And this long-winded spiel is by way of saying: "It may be so that some (or even most) of you write because you have to write and take pleasure in doing it, without need of further input, but it's ok to write to be heard also, it's an honorable thing, and it's hard sometimes to see writing that should be heard not being listened to."
I think the younger you are, the more that matters. At my age, I can just glissade my way over the "wrongs" I witness, and take the good from wherever I find it. For me, I see here a year-end celebration that's posted up 18 very nice poems, and not posted at least that many equally-nice poems that could have stood in for any of those posted. And I say, so it goes; I'm grateful for the ones I get to read, more grateful still for Rhina's wonderful commentaries, and appreciative of the efforts of all involved who made this happen, and I thank all participants in and makers of this event.
There!
(robt)
|