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Mar

2009

Minor Poet: a Declaration

Posted on 14:25, March 25th, 2009 by EKSwitaj

Read my latest story, "The All-Nighter", at 52|250.

This is a declaration, a speaking, a statement, not a manifesto. For a minor poet need not, must not possess the force to manifest a poetics in ideology. All a minor poet must say is “I am a poet” or even “this is a poem”. It may even be enough just to rhyme a couple words, but then that method depends too much on posterity.

I will leave nothing to chance. I will say it plain. I am a minor poet.

As a minor poet, I need not be concerned about developing a school in which to swim, let alone one to lead. What poetry by others than myself I promote, if I choose to promote any, I must promote out of sheer subjective love and awe. To do so with even the corner of an eye towards my place in literary history would be to risk an irritable grasping after greatness and majority. A minor poet must avoid at all cost framing herself as an inciting force in literary movements.

Pound promoted many great writers, including my own beloved Joyce, but not everyone was as stubborn as Joyce. Pound’s version of Imagism bled onto their pages and changed them. How many of the writers he influenced might have gone on to make something truly new had they not run into such a steamroller? Don’t give me the Social-Darwinist version of poetry in which this proves their vision was too weak to deserve to survive. Hothouses produce lavish blooms and only occasionally a corpse flower.

With so many awards for poetry these days, any poet who wishes to become Major must win one. As a minor poet, I need not spend hundreds of dollars on postage and thousands on entry fees. Should I be unable to find a publisher who does not charge reading fees, I could even self-publish, though even minor poets are not exempt from the desire to have someone outside their circles of kind and friends read their work.

Major poets also require a fair deal of critical praise. As a minor poet rather than a wannabe major poet, I don’t need to court the favor of poets-who-review or outlets that publish reviews. This means that I can write negative reviews if called for and speak against publications that discourage negative reviews of at least certain writers but do not notify the reading public of this editorial stance. And when some call that outside the bounds of “enlightened debate”, I am free to regard them as the ass-kissing cowards they are rather than engaging in some nonsensical “dialog” of contrition.

As a minor poet, I can never know if I am really radical or merely mediocre (and not one of you is qualified to make that judgement). So I just keep writing. Even as being a minor poet frees me to take certain risks within my poetry itself and within broader writing worlds, it positions me snugly in this protective uncertainty.

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Tags: Arts, Imagism, James Joyce, literature, Pound, publishing, Writer

Posted in poetry | print

13 Responses to “Minor Poet: a Declaration”

Dave on March 26th, 2009 at 5:01 am

This is terrific. Thanks for putting into words what so many of us feel, I’m sure. I’ll be linking.

If this strikes some people as a concession to hierarchical thinking, I’d suggest that rather than worrying about our place on some national stage or in the annals of literary history, poets might concern themselves instead with becoming responsible local griots and agitators: bioregionally aware voices of the voiceless, if that doesn’t sound like too grand a job description for a minor poet.

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Tom on March 26th, 2009 at 6:31 am

This agrees with my sensibility. I write poems for particular people in my life that mostly commemorate events and when they appreciate them, that satisfies me. I have no need for the approval of any ordained literary critics.

For example, I wrote this for my uncle last weekend: http://tommfoot.blogspot.com/2009/03/lyme-rickety.html

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Cathy on March 26th, 2009 at 6:48 am

Simple brilliant!! I think a lot poets need to take this attitude.

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Deb on March 26th, 2009 at 7:03 am

This is a delightful stance that *is* shared by many. Love the no-apology apology. I’m going to link, too, to http://readwritepoem.org/ , if you don’t mind.

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EKSwitaj on March 26th, 2009 at 12:52 pm

Thanks all.

Dave – I love “bioregionally aware voices of the voiceless” as a descriptor (but then the question becomes how to identify the region in our transnational age). It seems to me that any sense of poetry and poetics that isn’t about agitation is going to create a hierarchy no matter how it inveighs against the concept.

Tom – I think of most of my poems as open letters in some sense, sometimes a public declaration of something to someone I know but other times a letter to someone I imagine exists (or will) but who I haven’t yet identified.

Deb – It’s a very important point that this stance is shared by many. Dipping a toe into po-biz can make it easy to forget that.

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declarations about writing poetry, or why aim matters « Read Write Poem on March 27th, 2009 at 5:53 pm

[...] Elizabeth Kate Switaj makes clear what she wants to accomplish in her work with a simple declaration (not a manifesto): “I am a minor poet.” Read more here. [...]

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Jessica on March 28th, 2009 at 4:58 am

I’m here via Read Write Poem and I am so glad that I read this. I’ve had such struggles with continuning to pursue poetry, considering the likelihood of “success” in a typical sense, as many others do.

Perhaps success can be counted in committing to poetry despite success, and revelling in the freedom that a minor career can create.

Thank you for puting a voice to this.

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Minor Poet Manifesto « 9 to 5 Poet on March 28th, 2009 at 5:17 am

[...] 28 by 9to5poet As already reported at Read Write Poem, Elizabeth Kate Switag has written a non-manifesto for a minor poet at her blog. Sorry for the double post, but I really feel that this is a brilliant piece of [...]

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Lucy on March 29th, 2009 at 1:02 am

Over from Dave’s; I really enjoyed this, invigoratng stuff!

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Nicole Nicholson on April 2nd, 2009 at 5:18 am

Very interesting. I came here via Read Write Poem. Hats off to listening to your heart and inner conscience.

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