What is your job as a poet?
And what is it not? Poetry (pen) Pals #37
Hey,
How has your Sunday started? With a little coffee and some words I hope?
So last month I received a flurry of rejections to poetry submissions (I did later get one exciting acceptance, more on that later). They stung. They always sting. When they all arrive at once the plaster box gets a little depleted. They can, if you’re not careful, lead to a steady, “you’re poetry is just a bit shit and will never be good enough,” narrative. If you’ve ever submitted your poetry anywhere you’ll no doubt have your own version of an inner-critic spiel that slides off the tongue.
Anyway, after the final one landed in my inbox with it’s cheery, “well done for trying, the standards were really high this year, better luck next time,” standard issue format, I sat on my bed and grumped. I let myself feel all the big stuff (most of which I’d never say out loud). I let the feelings wash over me and didn’t try to push them away. Being rejected, or should that be feeling rejected sucks, fact.
Then, once the feelings had had their moment, I went for a shower. And after my final reckoning with the coldest water I can get from the tap (often this is when I do my best thinking) I uncovered this.
So I thought I’d share it. Because it’s a tough job sometimes this poetry writing business. The sensitivity of ones soul can lead to some lovely sentences but also too-soft (is there such a thing?) skin.
I wanted a reminder of my job as a writer. It’s unfinished, a work-in-progress. I suppose a bit like poetry itself :)
My job is not to win approval from one person. One person (!) One judge or publisher, with one opinion, one set of experiences, one personal taste, one purpose, one direction.
No. My job is bigger than that.
My job is to write from the heart. My job is to show up as myself. My job is to write honestly and bravely the things that only I can know and write, the words that I can’t not write, regardless. Despite…
My jobs is to write the words I am meant to write in this one life that I’ve been given. To quote Mary Oliver (my job is to only smile at those who try to discredit the poetry of Mary Oliver) my job is to, “let the soft animal of (my) body love what it loves.” To love, and to then expand that love as far as I am able.
My job is to write because I love to write.
My job is to write the words I am meant to write and not be swayed. Not get distracted, closed down, taken off course. My job is to let my words, my poems (stories, ideas, hopes) find the people (potentially plural) that they were meant to find. To keep doing that, even if it takes time, even if I never hear where they travel or understand how they land, even when the only person they were meant to find…is me.
My job is not to write for everyone I’ve ever encountered in my entire life, my writing is not meant to be bland and indiscernible. Nor that one person I’ve made up in my head (although who probably does exist) who hates my writing, I am not meant to write fearing their response and trying to prove them wrong. My job is to write for my biggest fan (you’ve got that one person, right?) and prove their faith in me right. Which actually means not having to prove anything at all (if it does then you’ve picked the wrong person).
My job is to amplify the words of other writers I believe in especially if their path is different to my own, to dismantle and distribute my privilege.
My job is to write like there is enough to go round, to compete only with myself, to focus on connection and on being part of the coming together in which we all rise. My job is to strengthen not weaken the bonds we have as human beings, with each other and with all living things.
My job is to not rely upon any competition or publisher or award or qualification or endorsement or follower/subscriber number or any individual person (even an individual person I quite like), or any other external thing to justify, give worth, validate or carry my words.
That’s my job. That’s my responsibility. My job is to trust and believe in my own art. In the words I am writing.
And wow that feels like a harder job to do sometimes. It feels so easy to give this task away to someone else sometimes. But when you do believe it and oh-my-goodness when you can do it, something changes. You stop giving away your power.
And actually, when you stop giving away your power and get clear on your purpose, it somehow becomes an easier job than the opposite.
Which is to say that in future I will keep submitting my poetry. And it will keep feeling dreadful when I receive the rejections, no doubt. And I will keep reading this back. And I will keep sharing my poetry, hopefully even more freely, holding back less - especially when I recognise that the hoarding is coming from a scarce, fearful place.
I will keep entering competitions. Not for the external validation but because competitions can be good fun. Will I be more discerning with where deserves my art? Yes, I think I will (no more submissions to places that don’t even bother to give a response). The whole submissions thing can take up so much time and be so confusing. The, ‘don’t publish your poem anywhere else like social media because god-forbid you find your own readers’ thing infuriates me (on this, this post by
made me laugh out loud, it is brilliant). The old-school gatekeeping involved is a huge irritation. There are definitely flaws in the system (and this could probably be a longer post in and of itself) but I will keep believing that my words have a place in the world.I will keep practising a pinch-of-salt approach. Remembering where the REAL work lies. What my REAL job is. Keeping myself surrounded by others doing the REAL work (careful with your role-models). Those other poets who keep sharing their light unashamedly, who write about subjects others might shy away from, who care about reaching people when they need it.
My best poems are like unlocked doors
another hand
on the handle.
I know that there are ways to get our words out into the world faster and further and this can be enticing and exciting. And I am all for it. I am ready. But I don’t plan to let that be my barometer for ‘success’. Rather things like
commenting she read a poem of mine* to her friends (this happened last week, I am still thinking about it and it is making me SO happy, thank you). If the publications and the accolades come (and I’ll be honest, I would of course love for this to happen one day) then I will be grateful. I will celebrate the hard work I know it takes. But I will try to see them as nothing but a delicious cherry on the cake.And by default, the rejections, as nothing but crumbs I brush swiftly into the bin.
*I did later win 2nd place in the Morecambe Poetry Competition last month too. I squealed so loud opening the email that my husband ran to see what had happened. The poem was called Tell Me You Don’t Like Poetry - you can hear me reading it on their website alongside some other brilliant poems (I also got to read it at the festival which was a blast).
A writing prompt for this week:
My job as a poet is…..
I suppose we are meandering into the Ars Poetica realm again but I think this is an interesting question to ask ourselves regularly.
You could start this as a journal prompt and do some free writing, fill a few pages. Then pull out any lines that resonate. Any images. Can you expand something that feels on point? Maybe a poem will result, maybe it won’t, either way I think this can be a useful exercise to keep us writing.
I also liked this prompt from Camille S.G over on Instagram here:
“Title a poem, “It’s Called Having the Heart of a Poet” and list the behaviours, attitudes and behaviours attributable to your poetic nature.
I really liked this one written by
:
I think I might be tempted to have a go in the week ahead.
How about you?
Nelly x
Last month I found out I’d won 2nd place in the Morecambe Poetry Competition. Which turned out to be a slightly bigger deal than I realised. I’m now thrilled to have another poem in an anthology and I got to read it out loud at the festival. In my head this was a small pub scenario, nothing too daunting. Not the beautiful restored Winter Gardens theatre in Morecambe, prior to the headline act
Donna Ashworth
- who had a huge crowd because she is, well, huge. I think I pulled it off. It was exhilarating and joyful - spoken word is something I plan to do more of in 2025 (I’ve been bulb planting this last week with the Autumn equinox, just dropping it in the ground here too).
My Job as a Poet: 2024 Edition
↯
My job as a poet is to scroll endlessly,
mining Twitter for the perfect doom-scroll haiku.
To debate whether to add #poetry or #poetrycommunity,
knowing neither will boost my algorithm-starved words.
.
My job is to Insta-filter my angst,
lay it out in neat typewriter font on a blank page,
photograph it next to a wilting succulent,
and pretend the likes will pay my rent.
.
I am a content creator of emotions,
A/B testing line breaks for maximum engagement.
My stanzas compete with cat videos and conspiracy theories,
in the attention economy's gladiatorial arena.
.
My job is to attend open mics via Zoom,
unmuting to snap fingers at screens gone black.
To workshop trauma in breakout rooms,
and pretend we can read body language through pixelated frames.
.
I am tasked with making climate anxiety beautiful,
with crafting love poems for AI chatbots,
with finding the sublime in doomscrolling,
and the profound in 280 characters or less.
.
My job is to be relatable, but not too much.
To be vulnerable, but marketable.
To speak truth to power,
but please don't get me cancelled.
.
I must condensate the human experience
into bite-sized, shareable quotes.
Plant Easter eggs for English majors,
while keeping it accessible for TikTok.
.
My job as a poet is to remember
that every grocery list is a poem,
every terms of service a dystopian novel,
every error message a koan.
.
In the end, my job is the same as it ever was:
to observe, to feel, to distill, to share.
Only now, I do it with one eye on my word count,
and the other on my dying phone battery.
I started working on a poetry collection on the spring, and I think I psyched myself out after a while, thinking about how hard it might be to get it published, and how difficult editing is for me (I generally edit as I write and don't revise my poems much after finishing, so getting some - really helpful - feedback and having to make decisions about what to do with it is very new for me) and I had to put it down for a while. I think I'm getting close to ready to start working on it again, and reading this is really helpful. Thank you.