Thursday Thoughts---
What I'm Listening to: Sister Golden Hair Surprise (by America)
Weather: windy
Mood: here
I've been submitting poems today. I went 25 days then submitted two days in a row. I usually submit when I'm not writing, but I also wrote today.
*
I've had this belief I need to be writing fiction right now, that poetry doesn't pay the bills. Corporate K (my alter ego) seems to have returned with her shoulderpads and business attire and has plans for me.
I sometimes think Artist Way, while centering me, also brings out all my fears about being a writer. The wasting-my-time stuff and the $$-stuff--the poetry-doesn't-pay blues. But I remind myself how it does pay, in ways that don't always come in a check, but sometimes it also pays in that way too.
Maybe I'm trying on new suits this month, trying to see how I look.
I'm not sure, I was a fiction writer before I was a poet (shhhh....) But then I fell hard for the genre that doesn't make the best party conversation. "My name is Slimshady and I write poetry. Here's the cheese dip."
Who knows. Maybe a little growing pains in the poetry barn, the writing shed. Maybe a little worry, a little wonder what's going to happen next. The idea that I have chosen to live my life as a poet feels kind of big these days, Talking Head big, same as it ever was. But here I am thinking and instead of writing, and that, my friend, my maverick, may be the problem.
What I'm listening to now: Dancing in the Moonlight (by King Harvest)
Kelli,
ReplyDeleteYou have great taste in music. Thanks.
King Harvest
I feel your pain. Seems I strive for some type of public accolade as a poet - then wonder what's the point. I walk away, but run back to poetry like a scared child without his mother.
ReplyDeleteK.H. - I do have great taste in music (I *love* that song!) Thanks for stopping by
ReplyDeleteS.T.S-- Poetry has a way of doing that. I always come back as well.
thanks for your note.
I read an interview with poet W.H. Auden many years ago in which he said that, whenever people (strangers, a random person on a train, etc.) asked him what kind of work he did, he'd gotten into the habit of saying "medieval historian."
ReplyDeleteHe said he'd found this an effective way of avoiding the weird reactions people tended to have when he told them he was a poet. He would say medieval historian and they would immediately get bored and stop asking him questions.
(When I was a college student, many many years ago, when people asked me what my major was, if I didn't feel like explaining why I was writing poetry, I would just tell them my major was economics. That was pretty effective too.)
Lyle--
ReplyDeleteGood ideas. I like the sound of medieval historian. I've said I was a mime once just to turn someone off, though I'd gather poet may do that just as well.
best,
Kelli