Positive Things
Well, since some of my posts lately have been sort of depressing I thought today I would concentrate on positive things.
One of them was my fifteenth anniversary with my lovely husband, G. I am lucky to have such a great partner in life (who also cooks – hey, it never hurts!) He made us a beautiful dinner yesterday because we couldn’t go out and we watched “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.” I was so happy to be with him.
Also, I posted this over at Victoria Chang’s blog, who was discussing this depressing Newsweek article, but in the midst of so much talk about the death of poetry and the dearth of poetry audiences, I want to focus on what we can do as individuals to make a difference. Here’s what I wrote:
“It’s hard to understand in some ways why people don’t read poetry the way they used to. But we do deliver poetry in more ways to more people than we could ten years ago – that’s one of the great things about the internet. And every time someone teaches a class, and has their students read new books by poets they’ve never heard of, and has an assignment where the students have to go out and buy and read a print journal they’ve never heard of, well, that’s growing the possible audience of poetry. Every time someone drags a friend or family member to a poetry reading, and that someone loves it – that’s adding to the possible audience of poetry. It is up to all of us, so don’t feel powerless. There are things we can do. Sometimes I joke and call myself a “poetry evangelist.” But I’m serious about helping other people realize how much poetry can mean to their lives. This isn’t just about buying and reading books – it’s about changing lives.”
I could be mistaken, but I do believe that when I introduce someone to poetry, it really can change their lives for the better. This is especially true when working with younger people, who haven’t already decided that poetry is useless/no good/too hard. Would I prefer it if the average American read (and more importantly, enjoyed) more poetry? You bet. But I also see that each of us can work to make that a reality.
I would also like to say that I am grateful to know so many terrific poets who are also terrific friends, even some I have met only briefly in person but had a great effect on me. People have these stereotypes of poets being affected, difficult loners but many poets are terrific, giving people who don’t fit that stereotype at all. And most writers I have met, I am grateful that I met. If I could have a big party and give them all homemade peach tarts (because in my imagination I could make them, they would be just like the ones in Paris tea shops) I would.
The poetry world can be hard. There’s a lot of rejection involved in trying to publish. There’s a lot of politics in the poetry world, but no more than any other society of people who specialize in something – search engine coders to astrophysicists. (If you’ve never seen “And the Band Played On” you’ll never know how cutthroat virologists can be towards each other.) There is the threat of envy (that person made it and I didn’t – why?) and cynicism (the system is corrupt – why even try?) But really, all we have to do is write, and then hope we can find readers for what we write, work as hard as we can, do what we’re able. That’s not so bad, right? And along the way, we might make some friends with fellow writers and get the opportunity to introduce someone to poetry who might not ever otherwise have had a good experience with it.
For writers, and especially poets, cynicism about our ventures abounds. I am a cynic by nature, about such subjects as politics, corporate culture, “scientific” findings, especially as reported by the popular press, and many other topics. But perhaps I am more optimistic, more hopeful, about poetry – and poets – than most other things.
Two recent essays: one on how poetry-writing is nothing but an assertion of the self, gratification for the ego, and another about the pitfalls and paltriness of the poetry world, have spurred an examination of this optimism.
There is no doubt that there are editors who publish people for the wrong reasons, publishers whose ethics could be questioned, whole poetry organizations whose aesthetics might be described as craven and capitalistic rather than artistic. That we can look at the top prize winners of our century and wonder, honestly, without bitterness, whether we are crazy if their poetry seems “bad” to us personally. There are times when every writer wonders if they should continue writing; that recognition and the means to recognition seem at once to be feared, hated, and prized. Sometimes it seems that even poets hate poetry, or at least that they’re certainly not buying any of it for themselves.
But I believe that poetry is a force, in general, for good. It is a method for laying out and sharing the gifts that we are given, whatever they are, a gift for noticing, chronicling, imagining, painting an internal world. I know that poetry has been something I have read when I have been depressed, discouraged, at odds with the world; that the anger or bitterness or ecstasy of some poet dead or alive has been able to light something within me. And that the reason that I write, and that most writers that I know write, isn’t for the glory of the writer’s game but to ignite that light in someone, somewhere, at some time. Even the poem (or poet) that thinks it dwells in darkness is actually full of illumination. It is an energy of sharing, of openness, of revelling in light.
