There's been no poetry coming through this addled brain for a while now, other than in certain isolated sentences in my private journals. It's tough to find the time to think like a poet sometimes when your life forces you to do so many other things as well: as part of my money job I'm having to do a management qualification now, and 90% of that has to be done when I'm at home.
This, you could say, is the trap. Well, yes, but what are you gonna do? Quit work? I'm half a paycheck away from selling The Big Issue; quitting work isn't a realistic option (if I survive this ailment that's making my chest stick every time I breathe). And it's funny, because all the while I pursue this capitalist life of work and responsibility--albeit with the greatest reluctance--I'm permanently broke. I am not doing well out of this. Nobody I know is.
Sometimes, also, I worry about the poetry scene. Are we really doing anything worthwhile? Are we creating enduring works? Or is it just some kind of boy's club where if you scratch the right ego, you'll become a "name"? I see very little around me that looks like it will achieve permanence...
3 comments:
hell, i write because i have too - i imagine you do to - permanence be damned- and write anyway -
Well, yes, you may be right, Tom...and I think you write good poetry. I'm just interested in the question of quality control. How do we know what's good and what isn't? Or doesn't it matter?
What always gives me a kick-along is the idea that one day, maybe 20 years from now, someone's going to wander into a second-hand bookstore and find one of my chapbooks on the shelf, and take it home. Or some kid going through old boxes in a dusty atic, uncovers one of my books. It's not much. But it is a kind of immortality, nonetheless. And it's all I need to keep going.
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