one step at a time
Jul. 9th, 2002 06:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gurdonarkI got the nervousness.org exchange mailed out in which I am
trading decorated notebooks of poetry with a Tennesseean. I was initially so discouraged with my try at decoration, what with learning first hand that cheap modeling clay really isn't a very workable covering material. Here is what I don't get--when I was a kid, cheap playdough dried in two seconds flat. Flat. Two seconds. Dried. Like a bone. Like a cover to a book. Like a really cool cover to a book. But not THIS cheap playdough. It's moist after weeks surrounding the little note book. I covered it over with construction paper, wrote something appropriately self-important about the fundamental malleability of the book symbolizing the malleability of the idea (as a poet, I remain a competent business attorney), and wrote in ten poems which even by my standards--which accept the good with the bad and treat wheat as pleasantly leavened by chaff--are entirely creditless.
I do not worry much about the poetry, as life has taught me that what I really like is rarely much loved, and the very few publications or notices I have gotten were by and large with poems I liked less than the ones nobody notices. If I had the appropriate look and swagger, I would turn that into some bohemian statement, but being a rather prosaic person, I will just take it as mild quirk and move on.
I was beginning to try to figure out how to scrape off the modeling clay and try something with paints, whenvoodoukween, who is an artist rather than an apostle of one dollar modeling clay, suggested that sometimes the best way to soldier on with a flawed idea is more or less, well, to just soldier on with it (my skills at paraphrase do not exceed my skills at art).
I determined to "make do" with what I had done, and turn flaw into supposed virtue. On went the construction paper cover over the modeling clay letter, on went two really mildly hip throwaway camera photos on top, on went a title to the book that made sense of everything, and INTO the envelope went a similar one dollar Dollar Store empty notebook, so that if my effort was not received with gratitude and thanksgiving, at least the recipient would not feel out a notebook. I took it all to the mail today, and now sit and wonder at a world so filled with beautiful things--none of which were made of modeling clay by me.
Lately, I'm tempted to submit poetry once again for potential publication, to those little magazines nobody reads but everybody wishes to be published by. For one thing, it would be neat to make a framed bit of wall art out of form rejection slips. Once upon a time, I submitted often and avidly. I found that getting published was largely a matter of hitting a particular "stride", and then submitting like mad. It was rather like sending out resumes on a job search--maybe one in thirty bites, one in forty. The little magazines, even the well known ones, are mainly places for people publishing or submitting to try to justify their grants or red-letter their "poets' credentials" for their MFAs. I frequently say that the music industry is dead, overthrown by independent recording technology and the internet. The field of published poetry has been dead for generations now, ripe for something new. I wonder if it was ever really alive. Its replacement is more sure, but it is not clear that it was ever more than a husk, anyway.
I remember in law school doing some research on lawyer advertising that required me to review old Arkansas Gazettes from the 1820s. Each paper had published poetry, in the first few pages, like a pastime. Those days are long gone.
Now poetry is largely something which can be vibrant or alive in coffeehouses and Friday evening readings, or a warm inside joke among academics who identify "stars" that nobody buys, write analyses of people nobody reads, and evaluate poems based on the credits contained in the submitter's cover letter. This snobbery happens in every field, but in poetry it makes less sense than anywhere, because there's no fame, fortune, power or even universally recognized aesthetic involved. It's just sustained whimsy. As I write this, I am suddenly a bit less harsh about it. I like sustained whimsy. But sustained whimsy it is.
It's not that I don't find some poetry "good", some "very good", some frankly "bad" and some "non-poetry". It's not that I don't recognize that at least several handfuls of solid critical matrices for poetry analysis exist which have some meaning beyond filler for dissertations. It's just that so often, "official poetry" is a dead letter office, with very little to do with connecting people to the medium.
The "slam" movement did a bit more with that, but was ultimately too limited a reed. In the long run, there are no real fields to plow in the world of small-circulation poetry mags and webzines, and one is "better off" publishing oneself.
Yet still I wish to submit to these very magazines I disparage. I am willing to read the little photocopied
form rejections, to thrill at a kind handwritten invitations to "show more", to gasp at an encouraging note, and to go into exhiliration at the rare notification that in roughly two years (unless times have changed), I will be published, and receive the munificient payment of two copies of the magazine.
Why am I willing to do that in which I disbelieve?
I have a job, the wherewithal to self-publish, and the kindness of friends and relative strangers who will read my work. I do not need a teaching position, an entry for a
poetry award, or to be asked to read at liberal arts colleges. My poetry will never make me famous, or happy, or particularly loved. Why, then, do I have this urge to
be evaluated by people whose work I respect less than they will respect mine? In particular, when I intentionally do not try to write "publishable" poetry, but instead try to write poetry that is fun for me to pen, and easy to read, why would I begin again to try to conform my work to what is "publishable"? It can be a bit dreary, you know, writing about emotions and making one's literary references so subtle that they masquerade as "insight" or "complexity". I suppose I know why I want to go back to submitting again. But my knowledge will not fit in one sentence.
Perhaps I am like one of my dogs, just dying for the validation of notice by "someone who counts". Perhaps
I have some mental resume in my head, ready to be typed up at death into an obituary or a letter of introduction to the Great Recording Angel. Maybe I have some fantasy, deep down, of being "known", and maybe even "loved", for my work. Maybe I just wish I could join some fraternity of intellectuals, like some tradesman who misses university. Maybe I just think I could drink mint tea with more confidence if I were published in "Poetry" or even "Exquisite Corpse".
Maybe, though, it is sheer whimsy, no more important or
wrong-headed than ponying up 20 dollars to play in a weekend chess tournament. I will never be a master, but it is fun to watch the moves, punch the clock, and see just whose king tumbles. I may not achieve checkmate all that often, but
it can be more fun than playing alone.
Besides, I do like to get mail, and to watch my post box,
even if the mail is just a form rejection. So I will continue on my path, publishing in my way, disdaining
the other way, and yet submitting notwithstanding my protestations of disdain to the disdainees seeking publication, and waiting for mail to come in, and dreaming great dreams and thinking great thoughts.
Hmmm....Poet's Market.....must buy.
Sense of perspective....must acquire.
trading decorated notebooks of poetry with a Tennesseean. I was initially so discouraged with my try at decoration, what with learning first hand that cheap modeling clay really isn't a very workable covering material. Here is what I don't get--when I was a kid, cheap playdough dried in two seconds flat. Flat. Two seconds. Dried. Like a bone. Like a cover to a book. Like a really cool cover to a book. But not THIS cheap playdough. It's moist after weeks surrounding the little note book. I covered it over with construction paper, wrote something appropriately self-important about the fundamental malleability of the book symbolizing the malleability of the idea (as a poet, I remain a competent business attorney), and wrote in ten poems which even by my standards--which accept the good with the bad and treat wheat as pleasantly leavened by chaff--are entirely creditless.
I do not worry much about the poetry, as life has taught me that what I really like is rarely much loved, and the very few publications or notices I have gotten were by and large with poems I liked less than the ones nobody notices. If I had the appropriate look and swagger, I would turn that into some bohemian statement, but being a rather prosaic person, I will just take it as mild quirk and move on.
I was beginning to try to figure out how to scrape off the modeling clay and try something with paints, when
voodoukween, who is an artist rather than an apostle of one dollar modeling clay, suggested that sometimes the best way to soldier on with a flawed idea is more or less, well, to just soldier on with it (my skills at paraphrase do not exceed my skills at art). I determined to "make do" with what I had done, and turn flaw into supposed virtue. On went the construction paper cover over the modeling clay letter, on went two really mildly hip throwaway camera photos on top, on went a title to the book that made sense of everything, and INTO the envelope went a similar one dollar Dollar Store empty notebook, so that if my effort was not received with gratitude and thanksgiving, at least the recipient would not feel out a notebook. I took it all to the mail today, and now sit and wonder at a world so filled with beautiful things--none of which were made of modeling clay by me.
Lately, I'm tempted to submit poetry once again for potential publication, to those little magazines nobody reads but everybody wishes to be published by. For one thing, it would be neat to make a framed bit of wall art out of form rejection slips. Once upon a time, I submitted often and avidly. I found that getting published was largely a matter of hitting a particular "stride", and then submitting like mad. It was rather like sending out resumes on a job search--maybe one in thirty bites, one in forty. The little magazines, even the well known ones, are mainly places for people publishing or submitting to try to justify their grants or red-letter their "poets' credentials" for their MFAs. I frequently say that the music industry is dead, overthrown by independent recording technology and the internet. The field of published poetry has been dead for generations now, ripe for something new. I wonder if it was ever really alive. Its replacement is more sure, but it is not clear that it was ever more than a husk, anyway.
I remember in law school doing some research on lawyer advertising that required me to review old Arkansas Gazettes from the 1820s. Each paper had published poetry, in the first few pages, like a pastime. Those days are long gone.
Now poetry is largely something which can be vibrant or alive in coffeehouses and Friday evening readings, or a warm inside joke among academics who identify "stars" that nobody buys, write analyses of people nobody reads, and evaluate poems based on the credits contained in the submitter's cover letter. This snobbery happens in every field, but in poetry it makes less sense than anywhere, because there's no fame, fortune, power or even universally recognized aesthetic involved. It's just sustained whimsy. As I write this, I am suddenly a bit less harsh about it. I like sustained whimsy. But sustained whimsy it is.
It's not that I don't find some poetry "good", some "very good", some frankly "bad" and some "non-poetry". It's not that I don't recognize that at least several handfuls of solid critical matrices for poetry analysis exist which have some meaning beyond filler for dissertations. It's just that so often, "official poetry" is a dead letter office, with very little to do with connecting people to the medium.
The "slam" movement did a bit more with that, but was ultimately too limited a reed. In the long run, there are no real fields to plow in the world of small-circulation poetry mags and webzines, and one is "better off" publishing oneself.
Yet still I wish to submit to these very magazines I disparage. I am willing to read the little photocopied
form rejections, to thrill at a kind handwritten invitations to "show more", to gasp at an encouraging note, and to go into exhiliration at the rare notification that in roughly two years (unless times have changed), I will be published, and receive the munificient payment of two copies of the magazine.
Why am I willing to do that in which I disbelieve?
I have a job, the wherewithal to self-publish, and the kindness of friends and relative strangers who will read my work. I do not need a teaching position, an entry for a
poetry award, or to be asked to read at liberal arts colleges. My poetry will never make me famous, or happy, or particularly loved. Why, then, do I have this urge to
be evaluated by people whose work I respect less than they will respect mine? In particular, when I intentionally do not try to write "publishable" poetry, but instead try to write poetry that is fun for me to pen, and easy to read, why would I begin again to try to conform my work to what is "publishable"? It can be a bit dreary, you know, writing about emotions and making one's literary references so subtle that they masquerade as "insight" or "complexity". I suppose I know why I want to go back to submitting again. But my knowledge will not fit in one sentence.
Perhaps I am like one of my dogs, just dying for the validation of notice by "someone who counts". Perhaps
I have some mental resume in my head, ready to be typed up at death into an obituary or a letter of introduction to the Great Recording Angel. Maybe I have some fantasy, deep down, of being "known", and maybe even "loved", for my work. Maybe I just wish I could join some fraternity of intellectuals, like some tradesman who misses university. Maybe I just think I could drink mint tea with more confidence if I were published in "Poetry" or even "Exquisite Corpse".
Maybe, though, it is sheer whimsy, no more important or
wrong-headed than ponying up 20 dollars to play in a weekend chess tournament. I will never be a master, but it is fun to watch the moves, punch the clock, and see just whose king tumbles. I may not achieve checkmate all that often, but
it can be more fun than playing alone.
Besides, I do like to get mail, and to watch my post box,
even if the mail is just a form rejection. So I will continue on my path, publishing in my way, disdaining
the other way, and yet submitting notwithstanding my protestations of disdain to the disdainees seeking publication, and waiting for mail to come in, and dreaming great dreams and thinking great thoughts.
Hmmm....Poet's Market.....must buy.
Sense of perspective....must acquire.
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kudos
Date: 2002-07-09 05:28 pm (UTC)and it is exciting to think of you sending your poems off into the world, to share them with others
for me there is great value in knowing that someone wants something i have made. to know that they have made a connection with something i have created, with a story that i have to tell is is good for my soul, my ego and my muses. another connection made
i can hear others share their excitement when something they wrote was published and i share that joy with them. i remember the feeling when the very first sale of one of my pieces occured in a gallery as opposed to at my house. it was a new height. not that i'm climbing any mountain that i know of yet it seemed a step up in the world. perhaps out of my sanctuary
Re: kudos
Date: 2002-07-09 05:34 pm (UTC)I love that feeling when a friend e mails, and asks to get my next little booklet. I must get it out someday. The poems are done; it's just formatting now. I remember when I got my first notice of publication, for a little mag in NM. I felt that I had arrived on Olympus...it was a cheering thing in less than cheerful times.
Thanks for commenting. I appreciate the encouragement.
no subject
Date: 2002-07-09 05:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-07-09 05:51 pm (UTC)All of you are essential readers, co-conspirators,
valued beyond words, more useful than appliances,
more patient than Job, and deeply appreciated.
Hmmm...."big daddy"....not quite as self-esteem-inducing as "hip daddy-o" :)
Re:
Date: 2002-07-09 05:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-07-09 06:46 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2002-07-09 06:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-07-09 07:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-07-09 06:02 pm (UTC)sent you a Hip-Daddi-O cap, etc. in yesterday's post by the ever more affordable media mail rate
all right so i cheated
no subject
Date: 2002-07-09 06:47 pm (UTC)Do you recall the postage, and I'll add it in?
no subject
Date: 2002-07-09 09:42 pm (UTC)who knows, I think I'll do my own little poem submission,
to that little magazine that never rejects, Robert's LJ.
It must not be much of a poem if I feel compelled to
explain it beforehand ...
I'm a huge fan of the old British sitcom Good Neighbors,
aka The Good Life, and harbored a crush on Good
Neighbors actress Felicity Kendal. If you've never
seen the series, it's very warm and fuzzy, and very
domestic too-- much of it takes place in the kitchen
of Felicity's character. When I noticed one day that
there are 14 letters in "Felicity Kendal", it put me in
a sonnet-writing mood that I sustained for two weeks
as I wrote a line or two a day.
Oh yeah, I have shared this poem with NO ONE before:
Felicity, your kitchen well is an
Escape from rain and wind and cold outside;
Lit bright and painted pale, it can
Impress the senses until now denied.
Contented, talking with you over tea,
I feel the air, all oven-warmed in here.
The weather rages on, Felicity;
Your kitchen charms and fills the heart with cheer.
Kind hostess, I forget how late it is!
Each hour is a minute in your home.
Now dusk approaches, waning daylight is
Dim-- I must leave your kitchen for the storm.
A winter storm I'll brave with ease when I
Look back on visiting Felicity.
I think a Stephen Fry quote is appropriate here:
"It was short, which is good. It scanned, which
is good. It was bad, which is bad.
My Secret Days and Nights of Lust, er, I mean crush, for Felicity Kendall
Date: 2002-07-09 09:58 pm (UTC)was totally enamoured of Felicity Kendall in the Good Neighbors.
I was heartbroken when I learned that she is happily "with" the playwright Stoppard.
I have found that virtually every man in America who watched educational television during a certain period of my younger days (a) is in love with Felicity Kendall and (b) thinks that he is the only American male who knows she exists.
Because I think that your sharing your poem is a very private act in a semi-public journal, let me be the first to embarrass myself by declaring semi-publicly my own celebrity adulation of Felicity Kendall. I do not like to admit to such things, having put aside childish things or what have you. But there it is. She was dynamite, charming, intellectual, and absolutely someone with whom one could imagine living "in the moment", if I may be utterly indelicate.
I am so deeply impressed that you shared verse about her with me, and capped it off with a Fry quote. this is a prime example of someone who is "trying really hard", to quote another post.
thank you. simply, thank you.
Re: My Secret Days and Nights of Lust, er, I mean crush, for Felicity Kendall
Date: 2002-07-09 11:04 pm (UTC)hitting the ol' "Post Message" button; now that
I've done it and have read your reply, I know I
made the right decision in posting. You
understand those Felicitous qualities that can
drive a fellow to write a godawful sonnet about a
woman he'll never meet.
The first letter of each line, by the way, make
an acrostic of her name-- you probably caught
that and chose not to comment. I don't blame you
one bit.
My Felicity Kendal crush, like yours, is from my
single days, and goes back to high school and
college. These days, of course, happily married
guy that I am, I can appreciate Felicity Kendal's
charms without getting emotionally involved.
One thing I regret-- getting a line wrong as I
wrote it: it should be
Lit bright and painted YELLOW pale
Shoot, the way I wrote it earlier, it doesn't
even scan, so it fails Fry's poetry test on
two out of three.
We must hang out and watch TV. I have the entire
run of Good Neighbors on VHS. I also have Ms. Kendal's 1965 film debut, Shakespeare Wallah, which was, incidentally, the first Merchant-Ivory
movie. I thought recent M-I movies were dull,
then I saw what they were like before they
learned pacing. It's like standing in front of
an old house watching the panes of window glass
melt.
But I digress. That sonnet, such as it is, is
the only sonnet I've ever written, and that's something we all can be thankful for.
Re: My Secret Days and Nights of Lust, er, I mean crush, for Felicity Kendall
Date: 2002-07-10 09:48 am (UTC)I think you need to add "Felicity Kendall" to your userprofile as your second "interest". Put it right behind "sanctity of marriage".