01-11-2020, 11:55 AM
The salient phrase in this thread seems to be "semi-professional poet." I would define such a person as one who is published, or wishes to be, while not making a living off it. A professional poet would be one who actually lives off his poetic craft, i.e. the Poet Laureate or an advertising copywriter. The rest are amateurs. Which is not to say the amateurs' work is worse, just that you'll never see it in public.
And the key to that definition is publication. It used to be that publication was a specific thing: ink on paper with an ISBN or Library of Congress number, periodicals iffy at best. Now publication is any damn thing the NSA can hoover up - except that real publication is still ink on paper, and there's no getting around it. That is our modern dilemma: the Net has vaporized little magazines, and self-publication is no longer the realm of swindlers, it's become trivial.
Now as to feelings. For whom do you write? As a semi- or aspiring professional, do you write for editors or (being honest) for yourself with a side of imaginary audience? If you were serious, you'd have an agent; there has to be one real person, even if you're paying him, to escape the bubble of solipsism. An interface with the world. A guy who knows people (which, being a poet, you don't).
Of course writing for others is limiting: their feelings become yours as you work to interest, offend, or avoid offending them. But the big payoff (since we're not professionals able to count dollar votes) is seeing the tears in their eyes or the knives in their hands. That's when feelings get real.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not an anti-semi-ite. I write what I feel, and/or to make you feel... something. And I believe, without any real evidence, in your existence (and feelings).
And the key to that definition is publication. It used to be that publication was a specific thing: ink on paper with an ISBN or Library of Congress number, periodicals iffy at best. Now publication is any damn thing the NSA can hoover up - except that real publication is still ink on paper, and there's no getting around it. That is our modern dilemma: the Net has vaporized little magazines, and self-publication is no longer the realm of swindlers, it's become trivial.
Now as to feelings. For whom do you write? As a semi- or aspiring professional, do you write for editors or (being honest) for yourself with a side of imaginary audience? If you were serious, you'd have an agent; there has to be one real person, even if you're paying him, to escape the bubble of solipsism. An interface with the world. A guy who knows people (which, being a poet, you don't).
Of course writing for others is limiting: their feelings become yours as you work to interest, offend, or avoid offending them. But the big payoff (since we're not professionals able to count dollar votes) is seeing the tears in their eyes or the knives in their hands. That's when feelings get real.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not an anti-semi-ite. I write what I feel, and/or to make you feel... something. And I believe, without any real evidence, in your existence (and feelings).
Non-practicing atheist