It's not been a good past few days. I've been sick and my television viewing has been loaded with either grim Oedipal conflict/capitulation (last night's excellent episode of BOARDWALK EMPIRE) or painful, wanting someone to be X rather than the Y he/she is (today's GENERAL HOSPITAL).
And watching all of these people taking/dealing out pain reminded me of my great primal hurt in poetry; just like Jimmy Stewart being shot through the hand in THE MAN FROM LARAMIE or Scar frightening Simba out of his homeland in THE LION KING, I had this happen to me for the temerity of (admittedly within a contentious discussion on another topic) asking a poet about if he ever read a chapbook of mine I sent him years earlier:
"I DO remember your chapbook. I still have it, in the piles of several hundred that I dutifully carried with me cross-country when I moved. Terry, it was dull. Very dull. Not bad, but there was little of interest going on there. I don't recall if I had read it yet when I saw you in Redondo, but even if I had, I doubt I would have said much. What was I supposed to say? "Sorry, it bored me to tears." But as I recall, it took me awhile to get around to it, because, even now, I get a ton of chapbooks very month. I've not thrown one away, and I try to read them all, but no, I can't review them, and I really had nothing consequential to say about it, for good or bad. As to my "wisdom would be something of value," Whatever. I don't recall volunteering to be your mentor, and while I've taught poetry in high schools and colleges, I don't recall you being in any of my classes. The sad fact is, Terry, I thought you were a nice guy,and always tried to be friendly to you, but no, I didn't care much for your writing. Would you have preferred that I said that? I can't see what good that would have done. It's not like I walked out of the room when you were on the microphone. Maybe you've gotten better, I don't know."
Tonight, as I write this post, I still feel residual raw nerves over the fact that a lot of people in the poetry community I've dealt with over the past thirteen years believe the writer of the above is an all-around great guy, a quarterback for Art and the kind of friend that certain Facebook friends would dump me over in a microsecond if they had to choose between me and him (and, believe me, I'm not asking that.).
And there are times that, in spite of whatever I've accomplished in poetry or tried to help others accomplish, I can't ever forget someone who was nice to me and my wife Valarie (even thought enough of him at the time to see him in Redondo Beach, referred to above) later feeling the necessity to pull out a rhetorical shiv to ensure that I'd be a poet that not only wouldn't "survive", but wouldn't "survive" over him.
If those are even remotely close to direct quotes, and I have no doubt that they are, then this person is a real asshole. (Aside from being completely wrong about your work on top of it all.) The poetry biz sounds even harsher than the film biz. How can that be? Maybe it's all a bit too insular. This guy obviously thinks he's of some importance when the fact is that he is probably not someone who would be recognized outside of the poetry world. Which is a very small world indeed. It's such a marginalized art form that one would think the people who practice it would treat each other with the respect that the rest of the world denies them. I guess that's not the case. Too bad. All I can tell you, Terry, is that I like your work. And I hope you keep making it.
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