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My Waffling Desire to be Poetic 3/11/2010 7:55:00 PM
A novelist wonders why she wishes to improve her poetry skills amid poetry's negative response in the corporate world My Waffling Desire to be Poetic
From Fantasy Author Sandy Lender
I’ve never claimed to be a poet. I write novels. (Visit Amazon and search for Sandy Lender.) Writing poems, creating poetry, or weaving words into poetic form isn’t one of my strengths. I typically write these pathetic attempts for my mom and include them in her Christmas cards. She pretends to appreciate it (and sometimes I think she does appreciate it), and no one else has to endure it. (Aren’t all you blog-readers thankful?)
Needless to say, I have huge respect for people who can create poetry. To an author who can pluck the right words out of space and time and place them in just the right pattern to evoke a response, I tip my cap. (If I wore a cap.)
Here’s the rub that’s got me staring at my latest issue of "Poets & Writers" magazine in consternation this evening. Poets don’t make money. Publishers don’t accept poetry. Agents won’t touch it with a 10-foot pole. When a “journalist” hands me his or her resume wishing to get a job with my magazine and I see “I write poetry” on said resume, I’m less than impressed because poetry and trade journalism don’t go hand in hand. A decade ago, the owner of the magazine I edited asked if I’d let our receptionist try her hand at writing one of the departments for the publication. She came to me overjoyed at the idea and told me she had experience because she wrote poetry at home. You can probably still hear the echo of my groan.
So why this desire of mine to improve my attempts at poetry? Why aspire to do something that doesn’t pay? Why work so hard to “get good” at something that so few people in the working world care anything about? If people in my corporate career don’t respect the practice, why worry about making it something great? What drives us to this madness?
