I realise, that quantity is no reflection on quality,
but what is enough?

Working on a recent project, where I have been taking
all of my hand written poetry notebooks and arduously
typing them up with the future thought that I might
actually *do* something with some of the work
contained in them, I began to be overwhelmed by the
sheer bulk of what I had created.

Take for example, how often we produce work. I have
absolutely no idea how much it is, that an average
poet produces during the course of his/her writing
"life" (the period in which he or she actually outputs
- or does one ever stop?) - and because I have never
taken an academic interest in the actual study of
poetry (oh, I have read more than my fair share...but
will leave the scalpels to those who take great
delight in the operation of dissembling work), nor
have I ever done anything with anything that I have
produced - I wonder if I have done too much, thus
watering down my own work.

If a person completes a work of poetry per day, for a
period of 8 years (Utilising myself as an example of
course), then that would total to a large number of
approximately 2920 pieces. Of course, my total is
somewhat between 2000 and  2100, due to the fact that
after finishing each notebook I take a break of a
month or so before getting the urge to rip through
another. I think in some areas its called meltdown,
though I am unsure if that only applies to nuclear
facilities and not writing.

Now, lets take the average poets span of creation -
how many is a usual number of works to produce per
year  (And yes, the prior disclaimer at the top of
this mail stands - I do understand the quantity versus
quality parameter)? When I get the urge to write, I
write - be it good, bad, crap and ugly or interesting
- I can no more help myself from doing so during the
period of a day than I can help breathing and
shitting, and I realise that each person is different
in the way they conduct themselves creatively.

Then the real problem begins to manifest itself during
the course of all this finger numbing typing - what
the fuck is even GOOD amongst this work? After going
through such a huge bulk of peices, one becomes numb
and imparted with the sense of "my god, what IS all of
this crap", sheerly because the content overwhelms
you. As you are naturally unsure and wary as to what
form your talent manifests itself in the first palce,
and overwhelmingly feel that you have A Long Way To Go
Buddy Boy, you sit down with hundreds of peices of
paper splayed out in front of you not even knowing
where to begin in sifting the chaff from the wheat
(and as we all know, you need the wheat in order to
brew the lucious beer that comes afterwards,,,). After
an hour or so, of going through pieces of paper which
form a virtual poetic diary of the past years, where
your soul is laid bare (for the ants to come feed as
if it were a bowl of golden syrup laying in the
sahara) and staring you straight, smack BANg in the
face for the first time - you just want to put it all
up on the shelf, and try to forget about it for a
while - until maybe you have that brief epiphony and
go "Hay, THAT one, and THAT one could work....",
before going back and being confronted with the entire
fucking overwhelming enormity of it all over again....

Of course, the problems then begin to pummel you a
thousand fold, no, a million fold. What is good? What
is right? What is shit? Where DO you go from here? How
the hell, are you supposed to know what to submit to
these journals, magazines and traders of poetic wares
if you cant for the life of you even manage to figure
out what it is your trying to say with all of this
dross - not to mention the finer poitns of what the
places you want to send them to actually WANT.

Before someone says "well, send it to a friend, a
collegue, or something to go through it and see for
themselves what is good - get a different
perspective", well, thats all very well and good for
someone in academia with , all well and good to show
some friend the pieces (who doesnt even know the
difference between Buck Rogers and Buckaroo Banzai to
start with...err, maybe not the best analogy), who sit
there, read through it with a slightly bewildered and
awed state that someone would actually DO something
like this in the first place (hello, slight obsession
here!) - they come back with the statement -

"Oh, I like the one about the bees and the aenema - I
didnt really understand it but it was cool".

Yes. Cool. Thanks for that. I write because its
"cool". You fucking pratt, (talking about *myself*) -
why did you show it to this person in the first place
- for feedback? For some kind of kind words? Did you
really NEED to hear "Thats really cool" for the
twentieth time?

Or, is it really that you _wanted_ to hear the words.

"That was cool"

Possibly. Probably. Shit, of course thats what you
want to hear - the wish for acceptance is a natural
thing, and we all vie for it - no more so than the
artist, who is in reality a base creature of wants and
lusts, raw emotion and boredom. So veering back to the
point, the reason I dont do anything with anything
that I create is because I dont want to hear the words
"thats cool" ever again. On the other hand, nor do I
want to hear the words "thats crap". I *know* that I
write alot of crap. I *know* that I also write some
brilliant fucking work - its not egotism, its merely
understanding that I, myself, am and always have been
a highly intelligent, talented peice of wetware.

I recline in limbo. My work never gets seen, it just
starts taking up more and more effort to stop it from
throwing itself up on anyone that comes into contact
with me.  I dont know anyone in the "industry" or
"circles", nor have I ever cared for it all that much,
except for the drinking wine and intelligent
conversation portion, so I have never had an honest
opinion as to where I was goign with my work, what was
shit, what was good, no direction, no input - its like
laying in an isolation chamber, floating on salt water
and humming to yourself in the darkness, and its a
real  shame that the tune is that fucking abba one
from that volkswagon commercial....

At some stage, it will spew out, who knows, maybe
someone that reads this will help facilitate it,
(though no one has ever tried/succeeded/failed so I
would have no idea as to where they'd begin) -

One things for sure though, you just dont want to be
standing too near everything when it does, in case
people start asking curious questions as to why there
are always carrots in vomit.


Fletch.

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