The chrysalis crisp someday
cracks and crawls away
till its crumpled fills
a renewed creation
I'm struggling a bit with direction and next steps. I'll be easing up a bit on posting here for the foreseeable future, so I can concentrate on longer forms of narrative. I feel like I've reached the end of my larval stage. The chrysalis is hardening, and I'll begin breaking myself down in order to assume a more mature and fruitful shape.
I'm also giving up on the idea of submitting my work anywhere. It's become apparent that my writing really doesn't belong in any publication. My style is too crude and unusual, and it doesn't play well with what others are doing, so I'll take the punishment I deserve and continue to imprison my poems in this obscure and benighted little corner of the Internet.
Thanks to all my regular readers and collaborators, as you and your sites are what keep me going.
Update, Nov. 9: I've decided to convert my short story Belly to verse, which will consume most of my creative energies probably for the rest of the year (unless I really get cooking). I'm not sure yet whether I'll post the chapters as I finish them, or wait until the whole piece is complete.
9 comments:
Francis,
I don't think your poetry is crude.
I love it. Nice to see you over at poets united.
Pamela
I do not find your poetry crude at all. Unusual, yes, but that is something positive in my eyes.
Frankly, your work is outstanding and complex and deserves to be published! The publishing houses today are just looking for the easily chewed... I doubt that great Ibsen would have been published if he handed in a script in 2010. But do not give up. I know what a struggle this can be.
A fellow weirdo
Having just read some of your work, I think you are great!!
Huggs
Kx
You have a quirky original style of writing which is absolutely your own; and very good. I’m quite convinced that most things are sales now days. Musicians and stunning literary figures like Ibsen would hardly have been accepted because they wouldn’t sell enough. Your poems are of a strange form which belongs to the same category as other literary types I look up to and read; some are published by large houses and others would not make it pass their sales sorry I mean publishing, agent (today).
Francis, this is the first time I am reading you and all that I can say is each person's style of writing is different and beautiful in its own way. So, don't bother about anything else, just keep writing to keep that creativity sapling growing within in...
@Pamela Thanks for this and selecting "emptiful" as the poem of the week at Poets United. I meant "crude" in the sense of "unschooled" or "self-taught" or "unorthodox". It was also a bit of a play on words ... "crude and unusual" instead of "cruel and unusual".
@Jenny Thanks fellow weirdo :). I have no intention to give up writing, but I don't want to subject what I do to the goal of getting it published because then I think it could become something I don't want it to be. Unfortunately I think that without getting published, you lack "credibility" in most people's eyes these days, though I'm hoping that will change.
@KSR You're very kind. Thanks for visiting.
@Ande I think you're right. Everything has to be commoditized these days, but I don't care about making money from anything I write or create. I'd just like it to have as wide an audience as possible, and to interact with the work of others.
@Shail Yes, you're right. I have to be a bit more zen about it.
Francis,
I will be very lonely without your words and hints.
Congratulations on being selected as Poem of the Week at Poets United.
A well deserved acolade and perhaps something, that may just assure you, that we do want to continue to read your words.
You have been an encouraging voice to me, from day one at my blog.
Best wishes, Eileen :)
No worries Eileen, I'll still be posting things here, I just may not be able to post as much. I've been tinkering with this story for a couple decades, so I'd like to finally put it to bed. And if it works as a form, I'll try to do others. I'm still deciding on the line structure, but I think I write much better when I'm focused on tightening up the language. Pamela was very sweet to pick me for the poem of the week. I hope I can devote a little more energy to the P.U. site in the coming weeks.
Francis,
Good to have read your comment. Life without giving you the very odd, 'odd challenge, would just not be the same!
I understand the priorities of writing!!
Best wishes, Eileen :)
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