In writing, there are a lot more literalists than there are people who accept enigma (enigmatics?). Most of what I have written aims for ambivalence. What does this mean? For so long I could feel frustrated trying to come up with solid answers as to what a story or a poem was about. The why of its existence. I recall how one of my novel readers in grad school, an advisor, had repeatedly written on chapters in my novel, “Point?” in faint, barely legible, pencil (she had a broken clavicle from getting thrown in karate). This is a question I don’t think one is meant to ask (literally) of a work of literature.
In order to get work published, you have to submit it. I took a break from submitting my writing in May after which I have not yet picked up any new publications this year. I am at a crossroads or a phase where I am—as I so often feel—trying to decide how I fit into whatever the literary establishment represents. I often have a sense of feeling like an outlier; I prefer it that way.
When it comes to poetry, I think I have entered the enigma sweepstakes. I'm drawn to poetry that does not shout out its meaning and intentions to the reader. Though most of this work is by established poets and has obviously been published and widely praised, I noticed more often that my own work hits very infrequently. Most of my favorite poems have languished in submission purgatory for the last year or so. Of course, a handful have also been picked up, including several that fall into that strong enigma category. Now, have I somehow duped the editors of these journals? I sometimes feel like I have gotten away with fraud. In poetry, I feel the least adept, though I love writing it, as mysterious a process to me as reading other poets’ work. But I doubt a reader will come away with any greater understanding of the world, or even a sense that they could explicitly paraphrase a poem of mine. Maybe I over and underestimate my own work. I have chosen this path with my work, but to this day I can often still be perplexed how I managed to get so much of it published. I think, from the number of times I've come across this sentiment expressed on Twitter, that writers are mostly always puzzled and surprised about what gets accepted.
Those works that seem the most powerful to me, I often can’t place. I suspect someone who thinks they know better than I do will tell me that I need to make it clear what they are about. But I will admit I'm not entirely clear on that.
I have this nagging sense that I fall out of the Venn diagram of the circle labeled “beloved and accepted.” I have always done the work how I have wanted, and this again points to how I don't necessarily do what is expected. I am reminded of the time I was in Thailand for a small literary conference, and I got to meet with a literary agent who was seething with frustration at having to read my work. I tried to understand what repelled her in my work, but she only became more irritated. I suspect there was something I was not picking up on, a clash of our personalities, and I was just trying to get a long, to even nudge my career a baby step forward. This agent, apparently well regarded in the literary world was (to my surprise) thanked in the back of the novel I am currently reading. To say that I still have an affinity for this writer’s work any longer (it has overstayed its welcome at page 200, with another hundred to go) I now doubt. But what prevented me from being seen by this agent? I am profoundly surprised by this writer's indebtedness to her.
It is said that writing is about community—but isn’t this said about everything? This year, I had thought I might break through and feel that sense of community for once. I enjoy the opportunity, as can be seen in this video I took part in for the presentation of Ilanot Review back in May, but these events happen once every few years, and I never seem to get any traction from them (If you are curious, my reading starts at 25:25).
Coming off of a poetry jag in January, I went back to a story I had written a year earlier. I was enthused enough to reread it, revise it and send it out again, but now I have doubts about it. I'm back at the place where I wonder: where is all this writing going? Do I have a grand plan? I used to, hence why I've reconceived some dreams. At this rate, I may never get a book legitimately published. A lot less has stopped far more successful authors. I was never doing it merely for that reason, but when you've been at it as long as I have, you have to start wondering, should I be? Maybe I've had enough.
I say it so often that I can be excused if I am repeating myself here: writing, like any creative process, ebbs and flows like the tides. For a moment, last week, after reading Matthew Zapruder's terrific essay on Lithub, I thought I might return to poetry. It is like returning to a strange land where possibly I feel the most out of place of all my writing genres, unprotected and without proper outerwear. On the other hand, I have felt need to work on a longer project most mornings of my dedicated hour, one that is loosely based on real male friendships (ooh, taboo alert!) and feels like “Is it a story or is it a novel?” with a continued fascination and thirty years’ worth of source material. And then there is that itch to craft songs, something that occupies me like a constant buzz lately. Really, nothing changes.