Immortal Words!

There’s a lot of ideas floating around about what it means to be a writer. Sometimes I think I take the idea a lot less seriously than other people—other writers—that I know. For instance, Saturday night Angela and I were watching the movie Sylvia (Yes, it’s the true story of Sylvia Plath, who turned on her oven and gassed herself, but it was sort of a love story…anyway, we also cooked a romantic dinner together), and there’s a scene in the movie where Sylvia and Ted Hughes go to Hughes’s apartment with two of his friends, and for a good time they take turns reciting poetry with really serious faces, while the other people in the apartment yell “Faster! Faster!”
Yikes. Not cool. Is that supposed to look fun to me, because I’m a poet?
I used to wonder whether I should even call myself a writer or a poet, like it’s some special title that must be earned, and until I’m making loads of money I have to tell people I’m an aspiring writer. (to me, that reads: aspiring money maker)
I spend the majority of my time writing. I’m trying to make a career of it. What else should I call myself?
Anyway, after cutting through some of the bull, it’s hard to figure out whether the media is mirroring writers, or the other way around. I was talking with someone in my program a while back about something another student had written, and the person I was with said something along the lines of: …I don’t know why they’re wasting their time writing that stuff, it’s not immortal, like the words of the great poets.
Again, yikes. Who are the great poets? Is that what we’re suppose to be doing? Cranking out immortal words? Not possible—and if it was, I’m not sure I’d be interested.
I grimace when people make statements like “All art stems from sadness.” (L. Hughes, I think) I think inspiration is a slippery idea, and I haven’t seen it succeed apart from some manner of discipline. And rather than believe that writing is a sort of divine gift, I enjoy telling people that anyone can be taught to write—otherwise, why am I wasting my time teaching a freshman comp. course?
The source of many writer’s instability—because it’s undeniable that the profession has lost more than it’s share to early death—I think stems from a variety of sources: the problematic writing culture we have, other misguided writers, the desire for social status… and, I also think it’s simply a problem that any critical thinkers deal with.
When finding your own way--necessary, in our culture-- you just might start to lose your bearings somewhere in the wilderness.
A shred of the problem I'm beating around the bush about is evidenced by a volume I’m reading right now by Jack Spicer, another early death. The title of the collected works is the same as his dying words, which were “My vocabulary did this to me.”
Maybe. That catchy phrase will certainly inspire a host of fools to drink and write bad poetry, but I wonder how much of Spicer’s problem was vocabulary and how much was due to other factors? Could it have been your vocabulary…and the fact that you were a raging alcoholic? What if Spicer had been a philosopher? A teacher? A pastor?
The power of words I believe in, and even some of the mystery, and admittedly there’s a lot I still don’t understand—the idea of a genius still intrigues me, although I’ve never met one. (I’m more comfortable with the word “brilliant.” I think 99% of the time it’s more accurate.)