Time to publish my poetry.

I've been sitting on a whole bunch of poetry for many years, not doing anything with it, not moving it forward... not doing anything with it at all.

I did put some of it up on my website, but I lost interest, once everything was up there. Frankly, the work does better on the printed page. And it looks better in a book. I published a number of chapbooks of my work, back in the 90's, but I kept quiet about my creations, for some strange reason. I'm not sure why, but I kept quiet about them.

I've kept quiet about a lot of my creations, over the years. The poetry, in particular. I did try to get published in little magazines, and I had some success. But I think that the stranglehold that the editors and traditional publishers of the world had on the publishing scene, practically my entire life, really had a chilling effect on my work.

Something in me believed that if I wasn't selected for publication by a press, then my work was no good. And I didn't feel like dragging it through the submission process over and over and over again, like so many pearls before swine.

I've always had issues with editors. And publishers. As long as I can remember, I've felt really marginalized and diminished by the traditional publishing establishment. It put a damper on my work -- as a poet, as a writer, as a woman, as a lesbian. I just didn't feel like anyone "got" me, and that feeling just quashed a lot of my creative urge, which has been a shame for my case, lo these many years. Why should my creativity be quashed by others, who either don't understand me, or who claim to own me once my work is printed and distributed by them?

Probably the most discouraging thing about the prospect of being published, was always that someone else had control over my work. Why should I have to entrust my words to someone else -- someone who may or may not have the same sensibilities as I, someone who may not even be as intelligent as I -- just to get out there? I mean, come on... I haven't come across that many genuinely brilliant people in the world, and editors/publishers are not least among those who I've considered aesthetically challenged.

Plus, you've got the pernicious influence of academia reaching its greedy tentacles into the literature scene. If ever there was a pack of people *least* qualified to judge art and be the "guardians of cultural taste", it's the academians. Add to that the infatuation that all too many writers and poets have with that blasted MFA, and the fact that a whole lot of them aren't schooled in the classics, are susceptible to the urge to please their halfwit professors who have been in the classroom more than out in the world, fending for themselves, and there are these "schools" of thought, these popular formulas for "literature" that are supposed to be conducive to high art, and you've just created a world and a set of scenarios I'm inclined to avoid like the plague.

And if I've always felt this way, I'm sure others do, as well. But not everybody has the wherewithall to tell the academic establishment to pound sand and bite them. Not every writer and poet realizes, the American expatriates of Paris, screwy and precious and posing as they were, had the right idea, when it came to making art.

Make art. At the expense of material comfort and social acceptance and the love of your family and neighbors. But make art.

Now, I'm not one for abandoning my material comforts for the sake of art. I'm no starving artist. But I do think it's necessary to make sacrifices for art -- to carve out a place in your life where it can grow on its own time, in its own way. Some artists make the sacrifice of a comfortable home or a regular job. Some make the sacrifice of money. I make the sacrifice of time. I take time out of my day, to write. I carve out large chunks of time I could be spending in some less challenging pursuit... watching television, hanging out with friends, frittering away my hours with hobbies. I could be relaxing and sleeping or eating or whatnot.
Instead, I choose to write. Even if it means not seeing anyone for days on end. Even if it means not having many other interests. Even if it means, being a bit of a nerd and not getting the jokes everyone is telling. Even if it means not recognizing the news or the latest movie star.

Anybody who is truly serious about their art, has got to make some serious sacrifices for it.

I don't sacrifice my home and my relationship. I sacrifice my time. That's gesture enough, I do believe.