[Christine P'legion]

Originally Posted by N. Matheson

When I began writing, I did so under the impression I would make something that would stand the test of time, to warrant memory and legacy.

Is this your main impetus for writing? Why poetry? How long have you been writing?

I genuinely do not believe any poet in the 20th or 21st century will be remembered in a few centuries.

I highly doubt that supposition, but if it's true; so what? You'll be dead then, as will the rest of us -- let future generations think of us or not, it's one and the same when you're not there to see it. And really, no 20th century poet? Frost, Eliot, Heaney, Thomas, Auden, Plath, Pound, Ginsberg, Bishop, cummings, Rilke, Brooks, Owen, Oliver -- not a single one of them will survive?

If I undertook any endeavor, I would do so knowing there is a chance, however slim, I could cement myself as the best.

If you will only attempt that at which you think you can be the all-time best, then enjoy doing a spectacular squat-diddly-nothing with your life. Needing to "be the best" is a shit motivator. It will kill your creativity, pleasure, bravery, and resilience.

I write because I enjoy it, because language is the most wonderful tool and playground I know, because I want to use the gifts I have, because there is pleasure in mastering a craft, because there are things I want to remember, because it makes me feel close to my grandmother, because it brings me joy when people enjoy or are moved by something I've created, because it occasionally puts a little money in my pocket -- for so many reasons. I don't want to be the best poet out there. I want to be the best poet I can be. Do you hear the difference?

I think any poetic venture in the modern age is doomed to futility and oblivion. Everything I could write will be deemed inferior.

And I think that this whole rant smacks of trying something, finding it was harder than you expected, and deciding that it's easier to take refuge in grandiosity and throw the whole thing over as a dead end than to pick yourself up and do the hard work of trying and trying again.