Writing. Living.

Began a redraft of the long poem for my mother tonight, tightening up rhythms and choice of words in certain places to give each line the flow and balance it needs. But whether I will chapbook it is another matter. I might just talk it up here and see if I can generate a mystery about it that'll inspire some poor publisher to shell out for an edition. Who knows, I could at least make a cool £50 out of it that'd pay for a trip to London.
I'm not that interested in dreams of literary glory, like I said earlier today (no, it wasn't just the early morning grumbles). Even if I got a handsome chap out with the poem inside, the right people would hate it and the wrong people would love it, and both camps would be making their judgements for the wrong reasons. That's the way it is in the poetry field.
Wonder why I even bother writing, given the stuff I say about poetry? I don't know myself. It's a habit, like shooting smack, or masturbating. Except it neither sedates me, nor gives me a temporary thrill.


The malaise in poetry began with this crap about Academia--the poets separating themselves from any kind of vaguely objective analysis--and in some instances from the obligation of hard work--by buying into the philistinic myth that anything done by someone qualified to do it will be an automatic failure.