Kill your darlings

[kaberett]

That One Lady & I saw Kill Your Darlings this weekend - we chose it by going "we should see a film together, that would be nice"; trying to work out if there was anything on we were interested in; TOL went "wait, I've got film listings right here"; we flipped through and didn't spot anything we were interested in; then we got distracted by an interview with Daniel Radcliffe to the tune of "but isn't he a sweetheart though"; and about thirty seconds after we'd moved on to flip through the listings some more, I went "hold on, doesn't he have a film out at the moment?" "Oh," said TOL. "Ginsberg! Yes." "... who?" sed I. "Gay poet," said TOL. And thus a plan was born...

... and now I am having feelings. Some of them are standard-inadequacy feelings about how I should stop trying to play with the big kids and let the Real Poets get on with things; some of them are about wanting to create more, to create better; some of them are about how poetry isn't necessarily the best way to express a thought or feeling, but can perfectly well be a best way.

And then some of them are about themes in my poetry, and about whether I am being boring and trite - specifically with how often I am returning to the image of shards and rebuilding [1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 ] at the moment (which is not to mention long nights and daylight) - but then again: I am writing for myself, and this is an image I keep being drawn toward. On rereading, it actually feels a little less like I'm repeating myself, more like I am playing with the same idea from lots of different viewpoints, which helps me a little; and in fact I think I might be settling into the idea that I don't have to fit all these disparate pieces together in one poem, and as though separate they stand in their own right (having said which, one of the other ideas I've been toying with is collecting them all in one place and pretending that the thematic consistency is a feature, not a bug...)

So. Mmm. Lots of insecurity trying to snare me. I'm doing my best to just sit with it, but as you can see that's not squashing all of the doubts.

Comments

[liv]

Ginsberg, wow. I am torn between being delighted that there's anyone left in the English-speaking world who hasn't seen his poems repeated and parodied to the point of cliché, and being horrified at just how little generational continuity there is in the Queer community. You're an actual poet, and you're so clued in to Queer culture, and you hadn't heard of Alan Ginsberg before this week. He's not just a gay poet, he's THE gay poet, he ought to be in every school English curriculum.

I am kind of weeping for tiny!Liv who didn't know anyone was ever gay between Wilde and Ginsberg and the revelation that Auden wrote more than just that damn train poem and Housman more than just pastoral stuff about cherry trees. (Both of which are actually way more subtle than how they're taught at school.) And what, a decade later? even Ginsberg is so obscure that you have only heard of him because he happened to be played by Daniel Radcliffe in a film.

You don't have to be as good as Ginsberg to be a Real Poet. You might as well say that everybody should just give up because Sappho.

[kaberett]

Hah, some of it is just that I'm really bad at remembering names (like, there is a poet whose words I want to get engraved upon my very flesh~ and I routinely forget what he's called); some of it is that there are people my age who know perfectly well about him; I *did* know about Auden and Housman, but... yeah.

[redbird]

As far as I can tell, all writers have themes in their work. Let the editors worry about whether it's too repetitive. If you get to the point of putting together a chapbook or poetry webpage, you can decide which three of the ten poems on a similar theme to include. Or maybe the shared themes will be an advantage.

As a reader, there are times when a writer's specific themes may seem a bit odd, but it's not just because it's repetition. Years ago, I was in an apa with the novelist Robert Shea (and a bunch of other people, most of whom didn't write fiction). Someone asked him whether the reason so many of his characters were orphans was that his father had died when he was two. He literally hadn't noticed: not "hadn't made the connection between those facts," hadn't noticed that he kept writing orphan protagonists and most other writers weren't. That repeated pattern didn't harm any of the books; it didn't have me thinking "wait, I read this" because the same man who had written an adventure set in Japan around the time of Kublai Khan, with an orphan protagonist, had also written one set in medieval Europe, ditto.

[kaberett]

Hah. This is an excellent point; thank you very, very much.

[macey]

I mean, comment from the peanut gallery: I for one am regularly impressed by your courage to post things that you post, particularly your poetry. Which is frequently beautiful. But I have some inkling on how hard it is to put poems up in public.

[kaberett]

<333!!! Thank you so much for saying; and... yeah, I'm not sure where I'm scraping up the courage, but apparently I am. (And these days mostly I feel okay about my poetry, like I've said a thing I want to, so the issue is more concern about boring people than concern about posting crap...)

[pretty_panther]

I think it is fabulous that you write and that you share and that everything is so honest in your work. If writing poetry gives you an outlet or a positive emotion or is just a way to pass your time or distract yourself then that is a beautiful thing.

I agree with redbird in that many poets have themes in their work that they are sometimes aware of and sometimes not. I think that can be a wonderful thing because...I find I'm tricky with poetry. I tend to like themes and if one poet writes something beautiful I want to find more by them on a similar theme and I can be disappointed when it isn't there. Themes can be awesome and so can diversity and I don't think one is better than the other. I don't think you repeat yourself at all. AS you've said, I think you are playing with that same idea from angles.

I don't comment um ever, but I do read your poetry. I'm just crap at putting it into words what I feel. I feel posting a ♥ is all I can do and yet it feels inadequate. So many of my friends write these amazing pieces and I'm just left blown away. Getting off topic though but yes, your poetry is a beautiful thing and I'd like you to know I think that.

[kaberett]

<333 honestly I absolutely adore even ♥-levels of communication, because it makes me feel less like I am spamming? I keep contemplating putting little kudos polls at the bottom but then awkwarding about it. So!

Thank you so much for saying. <3

[calissa]

I have been meaning to post this on your thread in the Love Meme, but one of the things I adore about your poetry is the repetition in theme. They are like different points on the same map and give added depth and texture to each other.

[kaberett]

fffff <3 Thank you SO MUCH for saying, and especially for saying with cartography :-)

[calissa]

I am glad it made you smile <3

[untonuggan]

no brainz AT ALL but your poetry is <3 and it feels completely inadequate to say that, but when you share it, it is a gift.

[kaberett]

<3333333 -- that is not even a little bit inadequate; thank you so very much for saying.

[azurelunatic]

Even if you were repeating, the garnet collides with sometimes the same stones and sand as the surface reveals itself ever gleaming.

[kaberett]

<3