because blogger is a self-publication tool, and because i find it difficult to get other people to publish my crap, i'm using this virtual space as a vehicle for my poetry and aesthetic thoughts. they suck, don't get me wrong. but what the hell, right?
volume 1 was waterinthefields.blogspot.com--it seems to me like a pretty artificial re-definition to start a new blog in almost the exact same space as the old blog...but look! the colors are different! and possibly not as readable! i think i still have a lot of writing about pomegranates to do, but maybe the forms of my poems will change in other ways.
it's hard cuz i feel like i should, in all fairness, submit to what appears to be something of a consensus that my stuff isn't good enough--maybe "good enough" is too limiting. maybe it's just not publishable. i don't really care--which is to say, i don't care much. aside from the part of me that says that i should be listening to outside voices and shutting up (which isn't what the outside voices are telling me to do, at all--they're just not using my stuff in their publications, a particularly valid move on their parts because they're the editors and are responsible for the respective tones of their journals), i understand that it's not absolute. i can't get published, but this doesn't mean that i'm necessarily writing badly. it probably means something like that--but maybe the definition is vague enough to stretch around the edges to the point where...
as per usual, i'm looking for methods by which to believe in myself.
i do hold myself responsible to art. maybe that's all that art can ask from me--because it's something like everything. i rarely know what i'm doing. but maybe that's part of what my poetry can bring to the table. (what is this table, by the way? it must be a big one, or maybe just have a very very tight schedule.)
or maybe my poetry has nothing to bring to the table. maybe it's like the indigent uncle who contributes a block of butter to the thanksgiving dinner. but i don't care enough to find out. gosh darn it, i'm tired of being told what to do: i'm gonna read what i wanna read, i'm gonna take from it what i wanna take, i'm gonna consistently elide words ending in "-ing" to the separate word "to," and then i'm gonna write the poetry i feel like i have in me. and if someone feels like stopping me, seriously, just go ahead. i'm okay with being told what to do--or i think i am; it's worth a shot, anyway, if you feel strongly enough to interfere. but until i'm told, i'm gonna keep on writing.
