Ten poems of publishable quality by the end of the semester. A book review of publishable quality by next week. These are assignments for my poetry class this semester, a 600-level, which communicates to me "the big guns." The things is, I don't know what "publishable quality" means. If I take in from the Best American Poetry text we used last semester in my poetry class, it means not much. It means hokey and often times vague. It means a diamond in the rough (God, how cliche) in a world of bad poems.
But if I take it from a colleague from the poetry class last semester, it means I haven't got a shot, at least not now. Said colleague and I went out for drinks with the rest of the class after the last day last semester. After the others turned in, we stayed out for another round and he told me, "Your stuff's good, but it's not going to get published the way it is." He wasn't being a jerk. For him, this was an honest criticism of a young poet, and I appreciate his directness. He's been published, and I haven't.
Still, it was hard not to internalize that critique of my work. A simple statement--good but not publishable--with no advice for how to make it so. I've been in a tailspin since then. I sent some stuff out, whether publishable or not, but I've been more hesitant to comment in class this semester. I do too much self-censorship, don't go with my gut feelings about a person's work. Or, worse, I read an idealized poem into their work, one that was never intended to be there. They do the same to me, too, and I don't fault them for the same thing I do, but I wonder if there is a way to approach a text any differently. I'll never be there to explain my work, so I have to rely on the reader to get what I mean. But isn't the fun part of poetry that readers bring entire societies and belief systems to the text, that they read in a story that the author did not necessarily imply?
I think these are issues of a young poet (or an old one). I've always written because it's what I like to do, and I never considered publishing my work (short of The Vortex) until now, when it seems to be a directive of the course. I'll go to class. Really listen to my classmates' often disparate criticisms, take the best advice, and maybe by the end I'll have poems of publishable quality.
If not, at least I tried like hell to do it.
P.S.-- If I'm MIA for a few days, you should probably inform the authorities. I'm sick--feel as if death has come near me--and if he comes any closer, I might have to be wheeled out of my cold-as-a-morgue basement apartment on a stretcher. If I survive this winter, I'm moving from this moldy hole, by god.
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4 comments:
I don't know who told you that, but don't listen. Either they didn't mean it or...well, I'm just saying you have to write what you want and how you want. Publishing comes with time and a little bit of luck. It needs to be less about the publishing and everything about the work itself. Remind me to tell you about Robert Sund.
Lord, Tim, if anyone can do it you can. Of course, you know how I feel about 20th century. What you should so do is find a time machine and go back in time, so that then you could be a Victorian poet and I could totally obsess over you ; )
(I can tell as I write this, I can tell it is silly, and not terribly helpful.)
Go to student health services-- I have yet to be on a campus that doesn't have them. Get antibiotics.
Beware the homoginization of the workshop, Tim. You have good gut instincts about your poetry and should trust them.
And Laura's right about student health services. Writing poems while you've got fever will make you read like a bad Beat poet.
Monda's right on here. Beware the McPoem.
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