All these book competitions will make you crazy…okay, maybe it’s just me. I do realize that most of mid America does NOT even read poetry, never mind the work and craziness trying to figure out how to publish a book. I have conversations at work all the time about “why don’t you write something useful” And the fact that I specialize in girl self esteem and the art classes as I do, article writing is not a bad way to go, that is if I were SANE. I am not…obliviously…
Okay so time for a secret. Not the lace underwear in the closet kind of thing but my grandfather was a poet. Published three books of poetry. Self published….but that combined with the fact he was senator, in our little town in Maine, made that man famous. I would go to book signings, touch his books on the shelf and I think it is pretty safe to say my mind has been twisted about writing for a very long time.
I am writer. And I can’t explain it but to say when I give a reading or I am in my room and a poem has just flown out of me, it is the truest form of who I am. It is Teresa pure. Stripped down. I know at that moment there is nothing else I want beside this. No one else.
But I fight continually with the fact that I am a lazy ass. Like now, I should be working on the book but I rather be here. Because this is instant gratification and my character is always drawn to that.
I read somewhere about how this person wanted to be a writer but was not willing to do the work of a writer. Wow did that hit home. Am I willing to do the work of a writer? To be disciplined in my art. I wasn’t in painting. I was a damn good painter and my professors pulled their hair out because I had no passion. I do for this but do I have discipline.
When does poetry become work? Should it be work? Or does it have the need to be more mystical? I know people who fight over such topics. I tend to go more to the work side. I mean some of its basic odd. If you are going to spend 14 years working on a manuscript and sending it out chances are someone is going to publish you. I mean the odds are high. Does that make you talented. Well talent is another question. And the other question is, who will be tomorrow great poets. Will it be Gluck, Collins or will it be some unknown person. Who knows…..and at the rate society is processing, will there always be poetry?God, I hope so….
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Love that your grandfather gave you the seed to start writing, and I'm glad he did. There is so much here, so many frustrations we all have: to love something so much, to want it as a profession, the impossibility of it, and then, realizing so few even read the stuff anyway. But finding a point to it all anyway, because, like you said, it is us stripped down, pure.
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