Relative Success, Relative Failure: Life as a Poet
I met with some writer friends last night where we talked about what success really meant for a poet: a certain number of books sold (maybe over 1000?) or a certain prize (one with a sticker, one of the members of our party said) or certain publications (Poetry, Paris Review, American Poetry Review.) A reading at a prized venue? A PAID reading? A teaching job? (We talked about the job market: jobs that used to require two books now require three.) Does success mean that someone across the country who has never met you might recognize your name? A Pushcart Prize? A grant? A review in the New York Times?
One of the party mentioned that poets ask for so little. That’s true, really. When I worked (albeit briefly) in technical book publishing, a goal of selling 60K of a certain title was considered pretty modest. When a book only sold 10K, it was considered a sad failure. On the other hand, a poet with 10K sales should throw a party. 60K would be considered pretty off the charts of a poetry book.
We talked about the things that help promote poetry books and which thing was the most effective: readings? reviews? We agreed that reading could be unpredictable (stories of a reading with 100 attendees and 0 book sales, or 12 attendees and 10 book sales, etc) and that the rewards of reviews were not directly tied to sales and were mostly intangible. Still, we poets do what we can. Not for the money, not for any specific expectation of reward, but more of a kind of intangible goal: to connect with other people with our writing.
We have dreams that a first book will change our lives. With a second book, we know the book won’t really change anything, but we hope for the best.
The Emotional Orphan
I constantly struggle with the meaning of, and what measure should be called “success”. I appreciate the article and food for thought. Be well… Jack
Howie Good
It’s about the work. Success is related to the quality of the work, not to the work’s reception. Unless, of course, one adopts external (and often corrupt) criteria.
You know what Wm James called “success,” don’t you? “The bitch goddess.”
Let the definition of success as fame or book sales or both go. It isn’t easy to do, but anything less leads only to frustration and despair.
Gabriel Gadfly
I’ve been publishing my poetry on my website for about two years now, so I think my perspective of success as a poet is probably a little different than the poet who pursues traditional publication venues.
For me, success is knowing that in May 2011, over 100,000 people read poems on my website. One of those poems alone has been liked 788 times on Facebook. Another poem was reblogged on Tumblr 39 times within a few hours of going live on my website.
My first book hasn’t even hit shelves yet.
Martha Silano
I would have enjoyed being a fly on the wall of your meeting of the minds re: poet success. I spend too much time thinking about this stuff, and it doesn’t get me anywhere but going in circles. I feel best (most famous!) as a writer when I am sitting in my car scribbling out a new draft. I don’t care, while I am in the act of writing, whether anyone will read the poem, whether it will be published, whether someone will click “like” next to it. All I care about is the next line, getting the poem spill out onto the page…and the excitement of knowing I have a poem to work on for the next few weeks or months…
Karen J. Weyant
I enjoyed reading this posting — like Martha, I spend a lot of time thinking about this stuff and getting caught up with “old school” poets who believe that a poet can’t possibly be any good if he or she is teaching at a community college (I am paraphrasing a remark made towards me!)
In my situation, I believe that success should be getting my students to read and enjoy poetry and teaching myself to be a better poet (and not to be discouraged!) I think success should be measured differently in different situations.
Radish King
I’m with Martha. To me success means to continue writing. Period. I know too many poets who give up. As long as I’m not that poet then I’m a success. Everything else falls away quickly. Though I’m one of those who never expected to make money at it.
Crafty Green Poet
Excellent post, it’s an interesting question. I agree with Howie Good that its about the quality of the work. For me as well though, success is the fact that my blog is popular, I’ve had one of my poems made into a short film and I’ve worked on collaborations with a musician, setting some of my poems to music. Financially of course I’m not at all successful, but few poets are. (Interestingly my first (self published) chapbook quickly made a good amount of money for a charity, my second (published by a publisher) finds me in the situation of not even having made back the money I spent on cheap copies to sell to people, because most people go straight to the publisher for their copies…
Jeannine Hall Gailey
Thanks for all your responses.
The weird thing is, I never really get discouraged from writing poetry. Though I try to be realistic about it. I’m much happier as a writer (though poorer) than I was as a corporate techie (though I’m still a geek – you can’t get rid of that!)
And I agree, the real fun of poetry is in the writing – and then someone else reading it!