Monday, March 28, 2005

Hitting snags

I don't think I'm the only poet who has ever gone through a phase of thinking "wow, everything I've written is crap." At least, I hope I'm not the only one, and I hope it's not just that I'm right and everything I've written is crap!

Sure, an acceptance would help -- preferably with a nice little note from an editor praising my work -- but other than sending out a bunch of stuff, hopefully to more or less appropriate markets, I can't make that happen. (And I do have a bunch of stuff out right now.)

Failing that, anyone have any tricks that work for them? (If this ever happens to you, that is.) How to I trick myself into believing in my work again, at least long enough to get motivated to sit down and write some more?

Oh, I know this will pass on its own, but I'm impatient.

5 comments:

C. Dale said...

It will pass. Go read some poetry. I know that always helps me when I suddenly think everything I have ever written is crap, which by the way happens at least 2 or 3 times a year.

A. D. said...

You aren't the only one. I often read Rilke to get my spirits back up. How about:

"A work of art is good if it has sprung from necessity. In this nature of its origin lies the judgment of it: there is no other."

Suzanne said...

Anne,
You are definitely not alone! If I ever find it shutting me down I purposely write a crappy poem. Once that's out of the way I can get in the groove again. :-)

Relief Map said...

Anne, think of this:

'Lord of harvest and of land if you commanded this
rest no it has come to pass.'

That's from Katie Ford's book 'Deposition'. The book has a strong undercurrent of The Passion, namely the 2nd section. And it's odd, because I picked it up from the library on Good Friday. Irony, how I love you so.

Anne Haines said...

Thanks, everyone. Good advice all. And even though I know, intellectually, that others go through phases of doubting their work -- it's helpful to hear y'all say so in so many words, to know that people I know have talent doubt themselves sometimes. Not that I take pleasure in others' hard times -- I'm not a schadenfreude kind of girl (with the possible exception of misfortune suffered by recent exes, but that's different, hah!) -- but it's good to be reminded that doubt is part of the process. Thanks.