Memoir of a Memoir: Week 5

Recently I have been really attempting to delve into what it means to be a poet. Jim Morrison once wanted to be a poet, and look where it got him? Imagine lamenting your fate of rockstar infamy, because you simply wanted to be welcomed into the bohemian set-nothing more. That was what he wanted, ultimately, to be taken seriously. Someone asked him to sing a few of his poems, and flash forward to him dying in a french bathtub. We all have our weaknesses. We deal with them separately and in our own way. I am well aware that my writing is an antisocial venture most of the time, and it causes me to revel in my antisocial behavior. I find myself in the company of non-writers and despising it. I find myself in the company of writers and despising that as well. I find myself in the company of nothing but my writing and suddenly my life has meaning. It means something to me, it sets me apart from myself, I can relive my experience. When others wander into my experience and get it, then that creates the cycle over again. There are some who find their own toxic brand of joy, mocking and criticizing written expression. They know very little of the benefits of that expression for someone who is meek, lost, and unaware of any emotional outlets before them. I have seen this in my work in academia, and in the corporate world. The same people who have very little time for poetry, who have very little time for the personal narrative, are the first to write nothing, to create nothing, to be nothing. The poets I know who are prolific, understand that writing is a daily undertaking. A poem a day really is the best way to keep your life flourishing with work and those I know who do that are the most expressive, creative, interesting people I know. So what of a page a day of a memoir, in the same way? That is something I understand to be important, another way of understanding ones self a little bit at a time-the way any human can. Poets, we do this daily, we know our selves better than anyone. We know what the point of this all is. And we know that those who do not, have no business being anywhere near the craft-so let them be. Let them live and die with their silly ideas, and their worthless criticisms. Move forward, my friends in verse. Move forward.