(Source) The love affair that I had (and still have) with the English language drew me to the etiology of words and ultimately to the doorstep of poetics. Words became my sole weapon against an Italian culture that I tried so compulsively to distance myself from.Despite my love & devotion to its nuances and the grammar of its expression – my love of poetics has gone by and large unrequited. It has not welcomed me open-armed within the ranks of its favored proponents. I still await the caress of an accepted manuscript – for example. I have not as yet been granted audience to read the borrowed words which best imitate my thought processes via poetic rhetoric. Despite my bending to a purloined culture I have nothing tangible to show for it. I still maintain a silent vigil.
I totally relate to this. Though I’m not Italian, or even a second-generation immigrant, I do understand being a part of the “outcast culture,” the unaccepted. I grew up poor, a Texas redneck, but I never really considered myself poor until I entered the world on my own and saw the decadence of those whose adoration I sought through my poems. I learned, eventually, not to seek adoration.
Poetry is not a glamorous art or profession. It is hard, grueling work. I sometimes wonder if businessmen who grow up in modest homes feel the same way as they make their mark and trudge on from rags to riches. Seldom, though, do poets go from rags to riches. There seem to be those who struggle from the underclass up and those who struggle from the upper class down. That may seem odd to say, but there are as many spoiled rich American poets who write verse that is pretentious and condescending in its approach to culture, as if to say “I feel your poor man’s pain,” while they drive their Beamers and wear their favorite silk shirts. I don’t relate to much of modern verse because it doesn’t seem real.
The Poet’s Struggle
The struggle of the poet who wants to publish is the struggle of all humanity – to make one’s way according to one’s own passions. Those who are born rich struggle to comprehend this side of humanity because their struggle is to overcome their lack of struggle.
Are you struggling? Poetics, I think, becomes more valuable if written from the POV of struggle. Publishing is no easier than writing. You’ve got to trudge along and send out your material. If you don’t, you won’t get published. That has been my struggle. I can sit and write all day long (or I could when I had the time), but to send out those manuscripts that I know I should be sending … well, that is another story.
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