I wanted in, and not just for the fame and glory - although who doesn't love a little fame and glory? But like a lot of poets I was looking for a home, for the promised land, for the place where the largely unspoken could be voiced. The confusion and pain that fuels many first books, fueled mine. I had to pop the cork in my throat and let that stuff out. I tried to do that artfully, I meant to do that artfully. The contest win meant I had maybe done that artfully. And I was grateful. I am.
When a terrific poet chooses your work from a the big pile it does help. It means something, but I thought my life would change. I thought my life would really change. Nods and smiles here, yes?
Of course in some ways it does. When people hear the word "poet" and look at you suspiciously, you can counter with your book - your published book. So it mattered, it helped - this "choosing" aspect of the poetry book contest world, but.....
then there's the rest. The money! The angst and (almost impossible to avoid) seeing your work only as others see it, or at least as you think they are seeing it, when you don't "win." The idea of poems in competition with each other becomes paramount, and reading can become a matter of best, okay, worst. There's a creeping in of a way of reading that is always judging - losing that first attitude of taking the poem in as its best self and savoring that. The way you fell in love with poetry in the beginning.
So did I stop? Hell, no. After the first book I was scared. Could I really write anything else, anything art-worthy, now that the first stuff, the dead father things, had been written. I got lucky - a good friend helped me enter into continued writing, and yes, book making, as an art form, a construction project, a crafty pursuit - something I could approach playfully. That was fun. And I was sure when I had two books my life would change. I would be noticed. I would feel noticed, validated, loved.
Enter the party scene with the big-wig poets. I was at an unnamed party with a lot of unnamed famous poets who were drinking wine, eating fabulous cheese and talking. This was going to be cool. I was maybe the only unfamous one there. This was intimacy with the artists, what it was really about - where the inner circle relaxed and let their hair down and I would learn me some poetic truth. One of the unnamed famous people who was there is a favorite poet of mine. Really wonderful and as it happened on the short list for a very big (unnamed) honor. We sat around a coffee table covered in art books and the talk started. Not about art - but about that prize, the big one, the big one that would be awarded soon. There was cautious speculation that the famous poet we were sharing a drink with would win. The poet demurred. It was not humility really, so much as a cold-blooded analysis of why the prize would go to someone else (older? sick? just had a great book come out? - the list went on....). Around the artsy table sage heads were nodding. They all had written great books and they all had won big prizes. They knew how these things worked. And the one up for the prize was visibly anxious and hungry for this particular recognition - after years and years of recognition. A light went on - there will never be enough. There will never be enough prizes. There will never be enough recognition. If it's going on here, I thought, in this room, among these winners, there is never enough. So if I go after that - I will always feel this way.
So did I hang it up and just write? Of course not. I have no other way to get my work in print than to take my begging bowl to the marketplace. For books, that means contests. And paper cuts, and large metal clips and over-sized envelopes and lots of money. Lots. Also, record keeping, also keeping the wheel turning as deadlines come and go. Also hoping. Lots of that.
But something was in motion in the back of my mind. I thought about "deadlines" and "dead lines." About hurrying things to make deadlines, about trying to stay in the spotlight - or near the spotlight - or in the same galaxy as the spotlight. It made me tired. I wanted a different something.
When a terrific poet chooses your work from a the big pile it does help. It means something, but I thought my life would change. I thought my life would really change. Nods and smiles here, yes?
Of course in some ways it does. When people hear the word "poet" and look at you suspiciously, you can counter with your book - your published book. So it mattered, it helped - this "choosing" aspect of the poetry book contest world, but.....
then there's the rest. The money! The angst and (almost impossible to avoid) seeing your work only as others see it, or at least as you think they are seeing it, when you don't "win." The idea of poems in competition with each other becomes paramount, and reading can become a matter of best, okay, worst. There's a creeping in of a way of reading that is always judging - losing that first attitude of taking the poem in as its best self and savoring that. The way you fell in love with poetry in the beginning.
So did I stop? Hell, no. After the first book I was scared. Could I really write anything else, anything art-worthy, now that the first stuff, the dead father things, had been written. I got lucky - a good friend helped me enter into continued writing, and yes, book making, as an art form, a construction project, a crafty pursuit - something I could approach playfully. That was fun. And I was sure when I had two books my life would change. I would be noticed. I would feel noticed, validated, loved.
Enter the party scene with the big-wig poets. I was at an unnamed party with a lot of unnamed famous poets who were drinking wine, eating fabulous cheese and talking. This was going to be cool. I was maybe the only unfamous one there. This was intimacy with the artists, what it was really about - where the inner circle relaxed and let their hair down and I would learn me some poetic truth. One of the unnamed famous people who was there is a favorite poet of mine. Really wonderful and as it happened on the short list for a very big (unnamed) honor. We sat around a coffee table covered in art books and the talk started. Not about art - but about that prize, the big one, the big one that would be awarded soon. There was cautious speculation that the famous poet we were sharing a drink with would win. The poet demurred. It was not humility really, so much as a cold-blooded analysis of why the prize would go to someone else (older? sick? just had a great book come out? - the list went on....). Around the artsy table sage heads were nodding. They all had written great books and they all had won big prizes. They knew how these things worked. And the one up for the prize was visibly anxious and hungry for this particular recognition - after years and years of recognition. A light went on - there will never be enough. There will never be enough prizes. There will never be enough recognition. If it's going on here, I thought, in this room, among these winners, there is never enough. So if I go after that - I will always feel this way.
So did I hang it up and just write? Of course not. I have no other way to get my work in print than to take my begging bowl to the marketplace. For books, that means contests. And paper cuts, and large metal clips and over-sized envelopes and lots of money. Lots. Also, record keeping, also keeping the wheel turning as deadlines come and go. Also hoping. Lots of that.
But something was in motion in the back of my mind. I thought about "deadlines" and "dead lines." About hurrying things to make deadlines, about trying to stay in the spotlight - or near the spotlight - or in the same galaxy as the spotlight. It made me tired. I wanted a different something.