Whatthewoodscreated lives in the midwest, makes things, makes them grow, and talks candidly about the kind of things we encounter regularly but don't necessarily bring to light. Maybe something you look at but don't see, or notice but don't mention. I always appreciate attention to detail, and have respect for such fearless honesty, especially on the internet.
I basically want to block-quote this entire post for being relate-able.
After getting disappointing news about yet another fellowship, I was thinking I ought to be done with poetry. Whatever I do, I can’t seem to hold it right for very long. I have all these thoughts and ideals about what I think Poetry should be. Sometimes I really do operate out of that ideal. I remember that poetry isn’t about making me somebody. It doesn’t exist to put me in a job or a book deal. I remember that poetry isn’t the goal at all, but a way to tune into the goal, a way to talk about the goal, re-think the goal. Poetry is supposed to serve humanity, to teach us about each other and ourselves, and to make us pay attention to the world. Poetry is supposed to (in my mind) cause us to forgive, to spur us, to quiet us, to jar us. Poetry should make us wonder about God, wonder about the astounding power of nature, wonder about what we are doing and why. And on most days, I’m ready to cash all that in for something to make my resume look better. Oy.
The problem is that all my poems are saying I’m lost, I’m lost. Or where is God, where is good, where is hope. And that scares me back into the world where I’m a waitress for no great reason other than one of loving where I work. Where I have literally no idea what I’m doing with my life. Where I have a creeping feeling that I missed the boat, and that boat was the last boat, and everyone else is on it, sailing away from an island that’s about to go down under the waves. And there I am on that island, sobbing pathetically about how I wanted to be a child still, and why isn’t the world different than it is.
Oy indeed. This is a brick wall, and don't we know it. It's somewhat self-fulfilling, in that we wonder about where we are as people, what we're doing, and that is a circle of the unknown, and it doesn't always feel great. The hope being, I guess, that each time you go around, perhaps you pick up a small "aha" to take into the next circle.
One time, a friend told me that he never wanted to turn what he most loved into a profession. That money would taint it somehow, make it his own bread and butter instead of a pure gift. Now that’s ideals for you. I admired it at the time, but I didn’t understand it until recently. Trying to use poetry to get me somewhere career-wise has cost me everything worth having in poetry. It makes me jealous of poems I should be weeping over, makes me scoff at poets I should respect, makes me write calculated phraseology where I once wrote poetry. That fight, I surrender. I throw in the towel.
Again, so relate-able. When we're unsure about something, the natural response is to look over, next door, next desk, and then that loop of unknown has a sinister tone, because every time you feel thrown, it seems that everyone around you somehow knows better. In the face of this insidious comparison, giving in seems like a great idea.
I can’t make poetry for the purpose of success. I’m no use at all at that. I genuinely suck at it. I’m not sure I’m of any use in poetry period when it comes down to brass tacks. But I know poetry is good for me. I know it makes me see better, gives me the heart to change (however slowly) into a Brianna far better than the one I am now.But the point of it can’t be much more than that in my soul. I can’t hijack it for gain. It’ll buck me right off. Which puts me back in the same shoes I wore before my MFA. Scuffy, old shoes that slog through the mud and out again with poetry clinging to the laces. I’ll stop pretending the work is anything more glamorous than that.
I feel a little bad using so much of her text on this page, but the words are worthwhile, and she's said it better than I could.
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