one of the problems is
that when most people sit down to write a poem they think
"now I am going to write a poem"
and then
they go on to write a poem
that looks like a poem
or what they think a poem should look like.
this is one of their problems.
of course, there are other problems:
those makers of poems
that look like poems
think that they must then go around
sending them to other people.
this, they say,
is done for status and recognition
(they are careful not to mention vanity
or the need for instantaneous
approbation from some sparse, addled crowd.)
the best poems
it seems to me
are made out of an ultimate need
and once the poem is made
the only need after that is to make another.
and the static
of a just-written poem
is the best response
to a finished work.
in days past
I once warned some poem-friends
of mine
about the masturbatory nature of reading poems,
done just for the applause of a handful of idiots.
"isolate yourself
and do your work
and if you must mix,
then do it with those who have no interest at all
in what you consider so important."
such anger, such a self-righteous response did I received then
from my poem friends
that it seemed to me that I had exactly proved my point.
after that, we [all] drifted apart.
and that solved just one of my problems
and I suppose just one of theirs.
- Charles Bukowski
No comments:
Post a Comment