When you give a substantial amount of time to an art-form that offers no material compensation, it is difficult not to feel a sense of the contradictory, or of internal contradiction. It is what psychologists and sociologists call cognitive dissonance, and it refers to a state in which the psyche is out of harmony with itself. In a world dominated by materiality and material interests, why put heart and soul into something that doesn't pay? This kind of recognition may not set in until a certain amount of maturity has been attained. Different poets grow at different rates; the kind of thought-pattern that is old hat to a poet of thirty may be yet to dawn on a poet of forty (or, of course, vice versa). Whenever mature recognition of what the world is sets in, the question begins to loom. Certain poets are exempted: trust-funders, for example. Let's face it: the history of poetry (and all art, for that matter) is largely the history of trust-funders. Why did Gertrude Stein never have to wait tables? Because she was hard at work writing Tender Buttons? No, because she was supported for her entire adult life by family money. Ditto lots of other people. But for those of us with no such luck, and who refuse to blow themselves up with illusions and delusions, the contradiction of working hard for nothing is important and impossible to ignore. It's not like I have a list of material goods I want to purchase: but what if I want to be a Daddy? What if I have someone to buy a wedding band for, and I can't afford a wedding band? I could be teaching high school in the burbs right now and making $80,000 dollars a year. Why aren't I?
One crux of this is that I see too many poets these days living in la-la land, as if this Depression weren't happening, as if things are as they've always been (easy, flexible, comfortable). Poets who keep spending when they have nothing to spend. Poets regressing into complete dependence on friends and families, to the point that accusations of laziness and irresponsibility are well founded. The contradiction I am living has everything to do with the sense that the last thing I want to do now is regress into complete material dependence. So, I wake up every morning ready to fight. I fight with myself to grant myself the space I need to create the way I want to create. I fight with myself to let difficult people win certain battles so that I might win the war. I fight with myself not to become disillusioned, bitter, or resigned. What are my weapons? A more or less complete belief in the redemptive powers of art and legitimate creation; a complete faith in my ability to feel my way through my life as an artist; a complete acknowledgement of both my vulnerability and my strength; a complete sense that I am doing the best I can, both as an artist and as a person, and that anyone that messes with me unnecessarily can go to hell.
There are a few danger spots I have located: I am having a harder time than usual locating a sense of humor and irony. The economic crisis has brought with it, for me at least, a sense of seriousness and earnestness that renders the old Jewish humor thing moot. I also feel more invested in protecting myself, to the extent that I have closed ranks a little bit (though I am wary of all through the day, I me mine, I me mine, I me mine). When you feel like you're fighting for your life every day, it's difficult to reach out, be compassionate, self-transcend. The irony, of course, is that self-transcendence happens to be the basis of most great art (even when the art is auto-biographical). As artists, we are most who we are when we go beyond ourselves. It is also hard to create when and if you find yourself in warrior mode. To be a warrior, you have to know exactly who you are, and be able to guide yourself from this position; to be an artist, you have to know how to efface yourself, as thoroughly and painstakingly as possible. The two modes, warrior and artist, are not naturally compatible, and must be yoked together by force in the manner of the great metaphysical poems. Once you are sitting in front of the screen, can you get into the space, that space, in which all serious composition happens? Have you trained yourself to know what that space is, and what it isn't? Are you prepared to throw out what needs to be thrown out, even if it means you've just wasted a big chunk of time?
I have a prediction to make, and it isn't a pleasant one. I think there's a decent chance that not all of us who call ourselves poets will survive this Depression. Some will survive, but will lose their capacity to create. Some will sink into a torpor that may be irremediable. Some will be forced by circumstance to give up writing. Some will lose their edge. Of course, I hope I'm wrong. Who knows? Maybe things aren't quite as drastic as they seem right now. And, if they are, I in no way privilege myself as someone who will undoubtedly survive. But we know that poets are often the poorest artists (materially) so it stands to reason that a genuine Depression would hit poets harder than, say, classical musicians or portrait painters. Few-to-none of us get steady pay-checks for our work. But to those of us who burn with a perpetual need to create, to express internal realities, stopping is not an option. So, willy-nilly, the contradiction I started with winds up completing the circle. We may investigate the interior room, glean pertinent insights, but the bills are not going to pay themselves. So, for me, and for many of my friends, the fight is on, though it has yet to escalate into full-scale war. I have my fingers crossed that this does not need to happen; that all of us can live on a razor's edge without losing any blood. It may or may not be quixotic for me to believe that this is possible.
7 comments:
Thank you for your post.
Glad you like it.
Adam, you've put up two excellent posts in a row, raising difficult issues that dog every poet, or at least every American poet. (I think the idea that poets in foreign countries have it better is exaggerated, though they may not experience the kind of cognitive dissonance you speak of.) The fact is that our countrymen don't pay for poetry because it's utterly irrelevant to them—and that's where the real angst comes from; we all make livings one way or another, but what we poets love is meaningless to most of our neighbors, friends, and family. Lack of money stands for the larger lack, the more hurtful lack.
How do people deal with lack? They comfort themselves by hanging out with fellow sufferers, or they invent a religion or philosophy that explains away or denies their lack, or they blame their fellow suffers for their lack, or they simply succumb to it one way or another. Hence the proliferation of writing programs, writers conferences and retreats, poetic movements, and the biting rhetoric of poetry blogs.
I have to believe that the healthiest way for poets to deal with their lack is to stop confusing it with the lack of money, which will become distressing enough as the Depression deepens; our warrior nature, as you note, will present itself to deal with the lack of money. But I doubt that our warrior nature will help with the other—the primary—lack, for who would we fight to overcome that lack? I think we're better off suffering it with open eyes and fighting it with a sense of humor. Once we decouple poetry and commerce, we can at least realize that no steely-eyed banker will ever foreclose on the joy of writing.
Joseph, I agree completely. What I am dealing with here has a lot to do with what you mention. It also has to do the pressures of living in an academic milieu. I take responsibility for placing myself in said milieu, and it is (barely) paying my bills. Nevertheless, I have not found academia to be particularly congenial to what I call "legitimate creation", i.e. creating outside the box of what is known and taught. I feel I have to fight because there are pressures on me to conform. Humor is a great coping strategy, but it can be hard to access when you are being driven up the wall on a daily basis. The central "lack" for me is a sense of continuity and integrity between the different facets of my life. And I do, in fact, have every intention of being a Daddy when the circumstances make it feasible. And the only way to make these circumstances occur is to "play the game", the basis of which is a denial of who I am. It's a vicious circle and, of course, vicious circles can generate the best jokes...and the situation is, as I said, by no means unique to me. Thanks for your response, as always.
I've been wanting to comment on some previous posts, but a 2 year old, adjunct life, and my own writing has sort of eaten time--but an eating of my own making. Thus, in my life, the timeliness of your post.
Anyhow, to me, there has always been a strains of poets who have had to endure a shitload of obsticals: working class poets, african-american poets--you get my drift.
Myself, I come from a family that in its best months kept electricity going in the house and didn't collapse under the weight of debt. Most people I grew up w/ were GED as best, and it was a real struggle to get out of there.
So, one part of me sees this depression and thinks, "Welcome to my world. Now your character and fortitude worth will be tested." In other words, reality forces your hand and asks "Why are do doing this? Why do you need this?"
And my experience is that people whose answers are more academized or purely intellectual--well, they fall by the wayside. And I'm fine with that--good writing comes from a variety of necessities--internal & external, and if one doesn't need to do it, then one most likely won't do it.
I'm brought to this scene in The Sopranos were Tony finally sleeps with the Russian immigrant with one leg, and says something to the effect of "Look at you: you came here, not a pot to piss in, missing a leg, and barely speaking the language--look at how successful you are now." And she looks back at him in bed, takes a drag on her cigarette and replies, "You Americans, you think nothing bad should ever happen to you."
That struck a chord in me--to the bone. Poverty, abuse, familair dysfunction: at some point, you get enough shit put on your plate and you stop wondering "why is this happening to me". You pursue what you want with a singular vision, and you go for it unapologetically.
Years later, in my MFA program at Arizona, and in other academic settings, I heard writers bemoan the market, the exploitive nature of adjuncting, the state of poetry in the academy--real valid lived concerns and one's that impacted my own life as well.
And yet, there's a part of me who looks out at most of these students--white, families of relatively stable economic means--and says to myself, "but this isn't that bad. You have food on your plate. You're teaching and enjoying life." And by and large (and I include myself among this), when debt was incurred, it was to procure a middle-class lifestyle that really wasn't born out of necessity so much as expectation.
I'm not sure this has anything to with the fine-tuned arguments of your post, except maybe to say that meaningful art is usually born out of trevail--economic, personal, whatever. The global, economic crisis will impact artists. But then, what do you do? You take the punch in the mouth and stand up and say, "Fuck you, I need this". It's not fair, it's not moral, but it's the world, for better, for worse.
Thanks for this post. It made my morning.
Joseph, Yeah, I'm right there with you, and I like the example from the Sopranos. I wish more poets had the viewpoint that you and I and Joe H seem to share. So many poets seem to be living on Neptune. As far as I'm concerned (and I'm imagining you feel roughly the same way), as long as I'm writing well I feel like I'm keeping up my end of the bargain, the one I made with the Gods, Pound, whoever. And the key to living successfully now (for me, anyway) is to just take it one day at a time. Let the days shape themselves so that you feel the stress but don't let it overwhelm you. Protect your space. Reserve the right not to interact with trust-funders and phonies if you don't want to (to be an asshole, basically, which is an unfortunate but paradoxically invaluable skill). And be proud of maintaining some semblance of balance while you walk through the fire. Thanks for your response. It made my morning too.
Adam! You and me and Joseph P. and countless others, I'm sure, are in the zeitgeist's grip. Take a look at this Harriet post—the first in a long time to address the kinds of issues you've been wrestling with such disarming honesty.
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