Kissing the Mask of Minnie Hot-Cha
Hope I'm not being snarky for this, but I found it interesting. From an undisclosed source; omissions are mine:
[. . .] I had been planning on attending graduate school for creative writing and poetry. In fact, I had been accepted into the greatest writing programs in the country, but I don't know what happened…all of a sudden, I sort of forgot about poetry and started [. . .] and really getting into [. . .]. And in the end, I had to make a decision . . . go back to school and get a creative writing degree, or pursue my life-long love of being a [. . .]. It was very scary. I know I let a lot of people down by not going to school, but I had to think of me and what would make me happiest, and besides I'm making way more money now than I ever would as a poet. I have no regrets and no doubts that I made the right decision. I love what I do.I think they are nice moments, these "what would make me happiest" crossroads, but I'm skeptical of them—and of happiness. Imperative, like hunger, has seemed more the compass, and happiness the victory-feeling of stumbling across such luxurious, momentary choices as these—or at least their mirages.
32 comments:
Life is a mirage and, as such, restrictions seen are usually of one's own devising. Anyone who says s/he chose fill-in-the-blank over poetry is deluding him/herself. Poetry is not a choice. Nothing in the world prevents someone from writing poetry and working in another profession except lack of strength, lack of conviction.
Sorry to sound cranky. Happy VD, stud.
Shoot, I thought I was the cranky one.
I agree with you. (If that's not clear from my oblique sentences.)
A happy VD to you too, Mr. Candy Curmudgeon.
Ha!
C. Dale, I respect your opinion, but I completely disagree.
Life, if anything, is nothing in particular. Some people choose not to do things they ought do; some people have no ability to claim the things they desire; some people voted for Pat Buchanan in the last election. Motivation is subjective, contextual, and difficult to discern. And all decisions of consequence necessarily involve sacrifice, which means any such decisions are inherently and simultaneously right and wrong.
I respect your conviction; success often requires it. And, more often, failure ignores it.
AJ—
I believe CDY's point (and mine to an extent) is that one who assigns this as a choice of one path over the other is deluding themselves by externalizing the choice. To say "I could have been a banker or a poet, but I chose the former because of . . ." is a fallacy perhaps because it is possible to be both and, by virtue of having chosen banking over poetry, the individual excludes themselves from ever having been at least an impassioned, viable poet. (This is not to say there aren't poets out there who should have instead become bankers.)
Rather, I think, the choice would be better phrased "I had to decide whether I was a poet, a banker, or a poet-banker." This internalizes things and more accurately reflects the decision.
Surely there are examples of those who've chosen poetry at the expense of life, liberty, sanity, love . . . To say that one is forced into choosing is then a question of how much one is willing to sacrifice, not ultimately of situational privelege. The individual is limited by themselves, by their fears and goals (and perhaps rightly so), rather than by their situation.
This is where "poetry is not a choice" prevails—if one considers that for some it may not be. Then again, these may not be rational individuals. Perhaps it should have been phrased "Poetry is not a choice for poets."
And I'm sure this is bordering on the religious to say that some are poets and others not. Perhaps this is why I've never been able to call myself one.
Of course there's Rimbaud. Poet and later Unpoet.
So much for the faithful . . .
AD--
Are you asserting, then, that a man who welds for ten hours each day can be an 'impassioned, viable poet'? What if the man is the father of two? What if he has no cartilage in his left knee? What if he is constantly exhausted? Etc.? You of all people, AD, should understand that the real fallacy lies in believing that choice is pure and uncompromised. If a man holds a gun to my head and says, Give me your wallet or I'll kill you, he has not presented you with a real choice. External conditions bind internal choice far more often than not.
Furthermore, poetry--like all the arts--requires the acquisition and development of technique(s). Talent is irrelevant if one does not develop it. To say that someone can choose to be a poet/banker--or shall we choose a more exhausting career?--belies the fact that any such choice necessitates sacrifice in both areas. Many people, I would venture, could be fine writers, had they sufficient time, experience, and conviction (among other things). Luck helps, too, of course. The point is that to choose between X and Y usually, though not always, compromises one's ability (and viability) in both.
To be more direct, I am bothered most by C. Dale's assertion, Nothing in the world prevents someone from writing poetry and working in another profession except lack of strength, lack of conviction. Nothing, of course, other than responsibilities, exhaustion, lack of training, lack of money, racism, sexism, lack of ability, exhaustion, geography, illness, a chance encounter with a moving bus...
:-D
Hmm . . . can we substitute "extreme exceptionality" for strength and conviction?
I don't know if I'm willing to say that a blue-collar father of two is precluded—I'm sure there's an example out there. I think the rub is that social/personal context requires unjustly different levels of sacrifice to the extreme of superhuman strength and conviction (perhaps to the detriment of being a good father or holding down a job in your example).
[I've never been a welder or banker, but I'm not sure one is more exhausting than the other. Clearly, one is more financially rewarding and more priveleged, and perhaps that would mitigate exhaustion. I have worked a third shift factory job as well as office and teaching gigs and would easily say that the factory work was far less mentally exhausting, even after overtime, low pay, etc.]
And, of course, all this reminds me of "What Work Is".
Crap, I have to go to work. . . .
I think the rub is that social/personal context requires unjustly different levels of sacrifice to the extreme of superhuman strength and conviction (perhaps to the detriment of being a good father or holding down a job in your example).
Well said.
And I love that Levine poem. I've been thinking about it all morning.
Crap. I'm at work. ;)
AJ writes: "Are you asserting, then, that a man who welds for ten hours each day can be an 'impassioned, viable poet'? What if the man is the father of two? What if he has no cartilage in his left knee? What if he is constantly exhausted? Etc.?"
Yes, I would assert that anyone can be an impassioned poet. For hundreds of years people wrote poems and did not live lives "as poets." As Donald Justice says: "We always find time in life to do the things we really want to do..." Why can't a welder write poems. I know many women who work, take care of kids, are always exhausted, and still write poems. Poets are not a privileged sect. My comment about strength and conviction is not about physical strength but about the NEED to do it and therefore finding time to do it. Even when I worked 112 hours a week as an intern, I wrote poems. Give me a break. What I object to is someone basically implying they were screwed out of a chance to write poems BECAUSE they had to be a banker. I come from a family of bankers. None of them are so tired they are restricted in doing what they want to do.
RE: C.Dale: Yes, I would assert that anyone can be an impassioned poet
I also completely agree with this. We are all awarded the same number of minutes in the day, what we choose to do with them is our choice. If someone wants to be a poet and a ____________, they can--if they want it bad enough.
They may not write as many poems, they may not be able to put as much time to their writing as others may, but if someone wants to be a poet or a writer, they can be. I *never* buy the "I don't have enough time" excuse. You do have enough time, you are just choosing to use it on other things.
Now with that said, what I found interesting in the original post was this--
In fact, I had been accepted into the greatest writing programs in the country, but I don't know what happened…all of a sudden, I sort of forgot about poetry and started [. . .] and really getting into [. . .].
Personally, I'm always impressed when someone is able to make to decision that 1) let's others down and 2) follows a "life long dream" of something else.
As long as this person is writing from a sincerity and is making choices because it's really what s/he wants and not fear of failure, then I think it's fabulous.
S/he may have been pushed to be a writer all his/her life and what s/he really wants to be is a CEO or apple picker. Who knows. The fact that this person is following a true dream (and hopefully it is his/her real passion) then I say, Perfect.
Usually it's the opposite. Usually it's someone wants to be an artist/poet/writer/singer/insert under paid artistic profession here and they don't follow that because of society's pressure to make money.
I am someone who has always tried to follow that "what would make me happiest" in my choices and my path and life is much different from many, which is slightly awkward at times. But would I change it? Nope. I think we each need to carve our own path into the forest and not get caught up in what others or what the world wants us to do or be.
my 2 (and leaning more on 3) cents.
Kelli
C. Dale writes: Why can't a welder write poems. I know many women who work, take care of kids, are always exhausted, and still write poems. Poets are not a privileged sect.
I never said that welders can't write poems. My point was neither that they can nor that they can't; rather, I'm arguing that some can be viable, impassioned poets, and some can't, depending upon a multiplicity of factors.
Regardless of whether or not someone can work 112 hours a week and still find the time to write poems, the fact remains that people shouldn't have to. Just because a small number of people are still able to find such time does not mean that everyone can. Such is the classical argument against affirmative action in all forms: People from [insert disadvantaged group X] can work harder. Just look at me. I come from [insert disadvantaged group Y] and I'm successful. Every such argument belies structural problems and differences in circumstance, all in the name of a kind of aristocratic impatience. Whether or not you intend to argue from this position, you are. And that's what bothers me most.
Look: I'm not calling you an arch-conservative here. But the only people I ever hear making this argument--that anyone can find the time to do X if they really want to, that anyone can be successful if they really try--the only individuals who ever say this are successful people. Successful people never seem to understand that, often, people far better than them are doing far worse than them.
I come from a family of welders, and steel workers, and mechanics. My best friend is a banker. I was the first in my family to finish college. I work one job teaching inner-city kids and another teaching privileged kids. I had a debilitating illness for over a decade. And none of these things qualifies me to say that X people can or cannot do Y thing if they simply try.
Poets are not a privileged sect, unless they are privileged poets. And, even then, they probably do the best that they can. Unless they don't.
CDY—
Word.
K—
Yeah, I think I sensed an insincerity in the original quotee's attitudes toward poetry. Something about clauses like "I had been accepted into the greatest writing programs in the country" struck me funny.
I'm just a kid, but I think I've had to choose a few paths that had little to do with happiness and a lot with necessity—and none of these compromises of happiness were for writing's sake. I think the impulse carries on (or thrives) despite its neglect and adversity for nutty ones like myself.
This is not to say that I'm a poet.
A—
Here I am with aristocratic attitudes, though I'm right with you in the social justice sense.
Perhaps because "success" in poetry is kind of meaningless in socio-political or economic senses, I'm letting myself be left cold to the exclusivity.
Maybe I just want to read more poetry of desperation put out by 120-hr-a-week, exhausted writers. I think it's a twisted analogue to primitivism for me.
To this either/or person, this "I could have gone to the greatest programs" person who decides to follow a more lucrative path, and, I suppose, never write again, I say, good for you.
It's a pretty common point of view, and it has a sort of practicality to it. This person was thinking about The Poetry Writing Career, and not about the writing of poems.
Obviously one can have a different career and still write poems, but the fact that this person didn't see it that way, shows that this person would do better not to go to graduate school for poetry writing.
AJ,
I never used the word "succesful". You did. How one would define that in Poetry is beyond me. I DID say impassioned. And I will restate it: If you want to write poems, write them. Offering excuses is silly. Yeah, any one of us can come up with excuses, but if you want it, then do it. You fixate on "success" when I never discussed that. I said if you want to write poems you can regardless of what else you have to do in life. My example of myself is clearly that, an example. My point was in response to your previous point about time. You construe my response in some neo-Marxist fashion I don't understand. Did I write poems to be successful? No. I wrote them because I wanted to write and because I felt I needed to write. Nothing will stop me from writing. Even if you chopped off my fucking hands, I would hold a pen in my mouth. Even if you cut out my eyes, I would buy a dictaphone. All of your rhetoric about conservative crap doesn't change MY statement: If you want to write poems, do so. Nothing is stopping anyone from writing poems. What my political or socioeconomic beliefs are have little to do with that statement. And for the record, I am a fairly left-leaning liberal, Democrat.
Oh, and one last thing, you keep shifting the argumentm which is, in and of itself, a rhetorical tactic to extend dissonance. The original point was this person who said s/he couldn't do poetry because she had to be a banker. This is what I criticized. If you want to morph that into something else, my response will morph as well. She never wrote that she was debilitated by illness. You wrote that. I have not addressed that. Nor shall I. It just occurs to me we are not speaking to each other because I am still addressing ADT's example and you are addressing something else.
John—
Excellent point. Reminds me of Letters to a Young Poet.
Yeah, I added the banker context, but I think it is important to think of this in the original frame: as some one, who by virtue of having this decision to make already seems somewhat priveleged, choosing a "dream" career at the seeming price of forgetting about poetic ambitions—not just academic ambitions, but "I forgot about poetry".
Discussion wasn't originally a universal social commentary, though I don't mind that it went there.
Nor was it presuming any definition of "success" in poetry—outside of a sustained creative impulse.
Which is the context I was using 'success' in, for the record. (A loaded word, I know. I almost didn't use it for precisely this reason.)
This is a good debate, in my book. I wish I could continue, but I'm going to have to fold. Too much to do. : (
It's good to have spaces to talk this in, though, isn't it? I hope someone else out there takes up my position so it continues. And thanks to C. Dale for taking my position seriously enough to engage it. I appreciate it.
I have a pony.
yeah . . .
er,
that it is possible for some nameless "one" to be a banker and a poet, or possible for Walace Stevens to write poetry and insurance policies, does not mean it was possible for this person. If banker v. poet felt like a choice, it probably was, for her/him, a choice. "For somewhere" (to quote a quote a favorite poet) "there is an ancient enmity between our daiy life and the great work."
Wish I could say I had that memorized, but I obviously read it below. Great discussion/blog.
It strikes me as a bit unrealistic and unaware of many peoples' experiences to claim that anybody can be a poet. Such a rosy claim takes for granted that most poets writing today have the benefit of a meaningful education, and -- let's be frank -- had at some point or another the available time to develop literary skills. Both of these things are largely priveleges of the middle and upper classes. While one person here might have written poems while he was an intern, I'm willing to bet that he didn't learn the initial craft of poetry while he was an intern. (Most likely that happened in college or high school, both of which were presumably decent enough to prepare somebody for a career as challenging as being a doctor.) There are many people who never get the time and intellectual space that education affords -- many people go directly to full time work during or right after their teen years. And frequently these jobs are deadening or at least stunting. It's a wee bit self-centered to say that, because I was able to write poetry working 112 hours a week, then anyone can. We all have different requirements for a writing life.
Yes, of course there are people from blue-collar backgrounds who write poetry -- I'm one of them. But I can assure you that "creative writing," especially one that has so little promise of payment, is frequently a baffling pursuit to people who have never had the substantial amount of time it requires to sit back and think about what "lyric" means. While many of these people could of course pick up a pencil one weekend and write a nice little poem, it's not the kind of serious poetic pursuit that the people here mean. Because that requires a kind of commitment that many people simply aren't (educationally or financially) capable of making.
Regarding the banker's claim: I don't know that person, but it sounds like they made a choice that was what s/he wanted, but isn't quite comfortable admitting. So s/he frames it as a choice that was made for them. Pretty common thing to do.
How about the example of Wilhelm Brasse?
Maybe one finally doesn't want or need what their art (re)presents?
"If banker v. poet felt like a choice, it probably was, for her/him, a choice."
August—
A good point. I agree. But does the fact that it is a choice for the person preclude them from the possibility—are there those who would similarly feel that they have no choice either way? (And would they be wrong or right in thinking this way?)
BP—
I think you're rightly touching on the fact that "to be or not to be an artist" isn't a question that everyone has the good fortune of being able to ask themselves. So, I can guess we can only address those who've had this luxury present itself. . . .
"Regarding the banker's claim: I don't know that person, but it sounds like they made a choice that was what s/he wanted, but isn't quite comfortable admitting. So s/he frames it as a choice that was made for them. Pretty common thing to do."
Yeah, I think this is where I was going.
A good example—I think Rimbaud, who I mentioned earlier, is an example of someone who "finally doesn't want or need what their art (re)presents".
For Brasse, though, "choice" is even more convoluted. The outside force that produced his photography is unquestionable.
Hmm . . .
There seems to be a conflation here regarding writing poems and being a recognized poet. Writing poems and being recognized for them are different things. My comments address the former. And I will say again, anyone can write poems. I didn't say that anyone can publish poems, did I?
I have patients who have no training in the arts who paint and write poems and play music, etc. My point remains: if you want to write poems, do so. This socioeconomic bullshit that keeps being presented is, ironically from a marxist standpoint, always about publishing and recognition. Who cares about the education? Cavemen created drawing on the stone walls of caves. Little kids write poems without much knowledge of great poems. I mean, are you trying to tell me that only the educated and leisurely can and do write poems. Stop equating writing with a life in the Arts. Anyone can write. Believe me, as an editor, I know this is true. Many people write poems who probably shouldn't be. But that is fine. The act of writing, in itself, is a joy. And for those of you who keep equating writing and publishing then yes, my statements seem elitist and disrespectful. But I don't believe what you believe, and this is the source of this argument.
BP said, It's a wee bit self-centered to say that, because I was able to write poetry working 112 hours a week, then anyone can.
Not really. It's just an observation of self, and if we cannot say what "self" did or did not do, how can we say anything? More to the point, how can your round-about assertion that poorer, less educated, and physically busier people are unlikely to be capable of writing poetry be refuted without citing experiences to the contrary?
For instance - and I am counting on the fact that you don't seem to demand that the poet in question be a good one to qualify - I did not write a poem until I was, well, mature. And when I did begin writing, I was a single mother of three children (two of whom suffered from a chronic and severe disease) who worked two very physical and demanding jobs and taught CPR and EMS classes in my spare time for extra cash. I grew up "lower class" on the So. Side of Chicago and probably haven't risen far above that. I lied about my age in order to get my first job at the age of 14 and I never received a high school diploma, much less attended college.
I've never had a "substantial amount of time" enough to learn much of anything other than how to survive and yet, with the time I did have, I read, I studied meter and I wrote poetry.
What the hell, even poor, uneducated and tired people have to do at least one thing they enjoy. Why would anyone think that at least some of them wouldn't enjoy writing poetry of some sort?
One dosn't have have to be a snob to like it - it just helps.
:)
I'm definitely with C. Dale on this one. Everyone does what's important to them (whether they're deaf, blind, lame, overworked, under-educated or merely incapacitated by generalized rage and bitterness). Not doing it means it's not important enough to you. And that's all. Is it such a crime to have other priorities? Nic
Lo --
I will admit that at the beginning of this debate I did think the discussion was limited to (for lack of a better word) "professional" poets. And while it is possible for someone from a blue-collar background to write professionally (again, I point to myself as an example), it's far more difficult. I know this because, coming from a fucked up redneck drug addict family, I can personally attest to the difficulties one can face trying to get out of that situation. (And I think the attempt to label a point of view as "Marxist" because it comments on the role class and money play in a person's life opportunities is rather shallow. It's not Marxist to recognize that being poor sucks.) I didn't realize, at first, that the conversation included anyone writing at any level of poetry, which certainly allows for a wider range of backgrounds. So I regret making that assumption.
Still, even if we expand the discussion to include ALL "levels" of poetry, I would argue that there are many people who would like to write poetry but cannot, and for a very simple reason: a poem is a spoken act (even when written) performed by an individual, and there are many individuals who (for a wide variety of reasons) are afraid or ashamed to speak. I know specific people like this, though I'm not going to drag them by name into the argument. But do I need to? Surely we all know people like this, at least if we're paying attention to the world around us, which seems to be the poet's job. Ssurely anyone who pays attention to human behavior, throughout history and in the current day, must recognize that there are a lot of people who simply cannot use their voice, but would like to. And I'm not talking about people who are silenced by threat of jail or physical punishment, but people who have deeply been ingrained to feel shame when they try to assert themselves as an individual. Yes, I believe that anybody can POTENTIALLY write poetry if they want to, but the fact is that many people live and die without ever having done things that some of us might consider very basic actions, such as writing a poem.
It's like saying that anybody can play baseball. Sure, it seems simple. But what if for whatever reason you can't operate your body? Would we be so foolish as to say a paralyzed person could play baseball "if they really really wanted to?" The fact is, the part our selves that allows us to write poems can also become paralyzed for a lifetime. There are many people who watch the game, and would love to play it, but will always be spectators. No, it's not a pleasant thought, but the fact is that it's an unfair world, and many people die unfulfilled.
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