4. Do you like the public parts of being a writer? How do you handle them?
Ah. This is complicated, and makes me think a moment about how to answer truly and well.
I love to read. I love the live exchange of that, and it also often feels like a ritual that puts me in a kind of altered state, able, for the course of the reading, to see the people listening with a kind of -- what? -- heightened clarity and generosity, to feel their listening and their essential generosity in attending to my work, and also to revisit the work (and the emotions, thoughts and observations within it) in a way that's very concentrated, cool and warm, both. It's a pleasure.
Although, there are certain settings, particularly ones in which coolness or a particular aesthetic that I don't share is dominant, in which reading can feel painful to me, especially if it feels as if the work hasn't truly been heard.
I like the way my work sometimes brings wonderful experiences and people towards me, that I get to do things that I never would have imagined or experienced if I weren't a writer.
I don't like the competitiveness and hierarchy and the feeling of scrabbling over crumbs that is so often a part of public life as a writer. I understand why it happens that way, the pressures we're under, but that part is not fun. I don't like it if it feels like people want me to keep saying the same thing over and over (although some of my poems are designed to say the same things over and over, and that's actually pretty fun), or only talk about things that I've already talked about without taking risks.
I don't like how some writers take up a stance of expertise that diminishes everybody else's knowledge and experience, and how often that kind of an act is bought as wisdom. I don't like it when I'm tempted to do that myself.
But there's a thing I really, really love, that actually comes out of all of the repetition, when I get asked to speak or write about something that I really do know a lot about, or care a lot about, and then suddenly, something I've been struggling to say becomes distilled and clear, and I say it, and can feel it being understood and responded to.
There are things that I keep private and off the table, or approach only in the work itself. I'm pretty protective of the people I love, especially since they haven't signed up for some kinds of public scrutiny in the way I do by being a writer. Sometimes, I'm not clear about where those lines are, and that worries me.
And, you know, it's also true that I have a very fierce hunger for my work to get more recognition, because that would create the income I need to be able to keep doing it and to keep getting better. And, if I'm honest, because I just want it. I don't know if that's liking the public parts of being a writer, but it's one of the forces that can suddenly, unexpectedly overwhelm me so that I find myself acting in ways that I barely recognize. I think I know more about that ghostly romanticizing fierce desire than I ever have before, and I have beloved people around me who help me recognize it and counterbalance it. Sometimes I think that I've confused it with my urge to create, but it's not the same thing.
5. Where will you go next on your trike?
That is a very, very good question. Maybe I will go to the pool, to swim.
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Date: 2007-04-05 02:35 am (UTC)Ah. This is complicated, and makes me think a moment about how to answer truly and well.
I love to read. I love the live exchange of that, and it also often feels like a ritual that puts me in a kind of altered state, able, for the course of the reading, to see the people listening with a kind of -- what? -- heightened clarity and generosity, to feel their listening and their essential generosity in attending to my work, and also to revisit the work (and the emotions, thoughts and observations within it) in a way that's very concentrated, cool and warm, both. It's a pleasure.
Although, there are certain settings, particularly ones in which coolness or a particular aesthetic that I don't share is dominant, in which reading can feel painful to me, especially if it feels as if the work hasn't truly been heard.
I like the way my work sometimes brings wonderful experiences and people towards me, that I get to do things that I never would have imagined or experienced if I weren't a writer.
I don't like the competitiveness and hierarchy and the feeling of scrabbling over crumbs that is so often a part of public life as a writer. I understand why it happens that way, the pressures we're under, but that part is not fun. I don't like it if it feels like people want me to keep saying the same thing over and over (although some of my poems are designed to say the same things over and over, and that's actually pretty fun), or only talk about things that I've already talked about without taking risks.
I don't like how some writers take up a stance of expertise that diminishes everybody else's knowledge and experience, and how often that kind of an act is bought as wisdom. I don't like it when I'm tempted to do that myself.
But there's a thing I really, really love, that actually comes out of all of the repetition, when I get asked to speak or write about something that I really do know a lot about, or care a lot about, and then suddenly, something I've been struggling to say becomes distilled and clear, and I say it, and can feel it being understood and responded to.
There are things that I keep private and off the table, or approach only in the work itself. I'm pretty protective of the people I love, especially since they haven't signed up for some kinds of public scrutiny in the way I do by being a writer. Sometimes, I'm not clear about where those lines are, and that worries me.
And, you know, it's also true that I have a very fierce hunger for my work to get more recognition, because that would create the income I need to be able to keep doing it and to keep getting better. And, if I'm honest, because I just want it. I don't know if that's liking the public parts of being a writer, but it's one of the forces that can suddenly, unexpectedly overwhelm me so that I find myself acting in ways that I barely recognize. I think I know more about that ghostly romanticizing fierce desire than I ever have before, and I have beloved people around me who help me recognize it and counterbalance it. Sometimes I think that I've confused it with my urge to create, but it's not the same thing.
5. Where will you go next on your trike?
That is a very, very good question. Maybe I will go to the pool, to swim.