~ Writing about writing ~
For The Young Who Want To
Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting.
Work is what you have done
after the play is produced
and the audience claps.
Before that friends keep asking
when you are planning to go
out and get a job.
Genius is what they know you
had after the third volume
of remarkable poems. Earlier
they accuse you of withdrawing,
ask why you don't have a baby,
call you a bum.
The reason people want M.F.A.'s,
take workshops with fancy names
when all you can really
learn is a few techniques,
typing instructions and some-
body else's mannerisms
is that every artist lacks
a license to hang on the wall
like your optician, your vet
proving you may be a clumsy sadist
whose fillings fall into the stew
but you're certified a dentist.
The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.
– Marge Piercy
from Circles on the Water (NY, Knopf 1982).
First published Mother Jones V, no. 4 (May 1980).
Copyright © 1980, 1982 by Marge Piercy and Middlemarsh, Inc.
Used here for purposes of study.
Note: Phlogiston is an imaginary element once supposed to cause spontaneous combustion.
No commentary from me this time. I invite your own responses. I present this piece particularly for the many fine poets amongst us who somehow don't think they are "real poets" yet.
(Marge Piercy is one of my greatest favourites, whose books – novels and volumes of poetry – are available on Amazon.)
