This reminds me of how I did not call myself a writer until I was published. IMHO I feel that anyone who writes poetry is a poet. I do hope you will reach a point where you are able to start calling yourself a "poet" though I feel you already are one. :)
Brilliant topic. Won’t bore you with my history of credits in poetry - assume I am advanced and have done well above average. Plus I have been majorly and solely dedicated to it for over 30 years. I will never call myself a poet. I will never be the laureate but in a fictional world if I was I still wouldn’t. To me the form walls of prose, poetry, drama, film scripts etc are all porous. They all cross fertilise, leak into, feed and influence each other. If you’re highly evolved and committed to activity in any of these fields the only logical thing to call yourself is a writer.
I can relate to this. As a poet I suffer from imposter syndrome. I write poems easily, too easily, so I think they can't be any good. Their birth may be relatively painless but then I carry them around like babies on my hip, feeding them when they cry out for nourishment and changing them whenever I think they need it. I love them but they annoy me, they tire me out and I become desperate to put them down, and let them go and wish them a happy future. Then I go back and look at the first draft I made weeks ago and realise it was better than the finished piece.
One year I submitted every week to the O'Beal competition. Despite blood, sweat and tears, all my efforts failed. That's it! I decided. Despite that, the next year I dashed one off quickly at the beginning and forgot all about it and won 250 euros. Yes, poetry is a fascinating subject I know everything and nothing about.
This reminds me of how I did not call myself a writer until I was published. IMHO I feel that anyone who writes poetry is a poet. I do hope you will reach a point where you are able to start calling yourself a "poet" though I feel you already are one. :)
Thanks Dawn.
Brilliant topic. Won’t bore you with my history of credits in poetry - assume I am advanced and have done well above average. Plus I have been majorly and solely dedicated to it for over 30 years. I will never call myself a poet. I will never be the laureate but in a fictional world if I was I still wouldn’t. To me the form walls of prose, poetry, drama, film scripts etc are all porous. They all cross fertilise, leak into, feed and influence each other. If you’re highly evolved and committed to activity in any of these fields the only logical thing to call yourself is a writer.
Perfect!
I can relate to this. As a poet I suffer from imposter syndrome. I write poems easily, too easily, so I think they can't be any good. Their birth may be relatively painless but then I carry them around like babies on my hip, feeding them when they cry out for nourishment and changing them whenever I think they need it. I love them but they annoy me, they tire me out and I become desperate to put them down, and let them go and wish them a happy future. Then I go back and look at the first draft I made weeks ago and realise it was better than the finished piece.
One year I submitted every week to the O'Beal competition. Despite blood, sweat and tears, all my efforts failed. That's it! I decided. Despite that, the next year I dashed one off quickly at the beginning and forgot all about it and won 250 euros. Yes, poetry is a fascinating subject I know everything and nothing about.