Posted by Atticus on December 21, 2004, at 11:59:50
In reply to Re: Let's Get More Personal » Atticus, posted by AdaGrace on December 21, 2004, at 8:00:22
Hi AdaGrace,
Well, his ego certainly does seem oversized, and his fear of plagiarism strikes me as a little absurd. Who goes picking through trash along the road looking for publishable material? Who even would want to touch garbage along the road? Most likely, if the poem was tossed out along a highway, it was unceremoniously dumped into a garbage bag by one of those road crews (usually either made up of Adopt-a-Highway volunteers or inmates in orange jumpsuits) and his opus is now in a landfill somewhere. If it was a street, rain and the elements have probably made it illegible or washed it down a storm drain. To write a poem for you (I've done that a few times here for others) and then present it as a gift when actually you're being used as grist for his literary mill makes me think he certainly doesn't think like a poet. The poem and what it communicates to a specific person or to people in general is the central point of satisfaction for me. If profit is someone's motive from the get-go, then you usually don't see the most stellar work. Writing commercially means appealing to the widest common denominator; eccentricity doesn't move Hallmark cards. When I go to work every day at the university I know I'm writing for my bread and butter. That takes my head in very different direction than my work here and on my Web site, because work posted here only has to satisfy me. It doesn't get diluted. Selling the poems I wrote for Malthus or the poem about meeting crushedout or the punk rock song for Sabrina never crossed my mind. I'm not going to offer advice on the friendship, but I get the feeling you're reappraising the whole thing, which isn't a bad idea. Ta. ;) Atticus
poster:Atticus
thread:430026
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20041210/msgs/432454.html