The poetry of artistic failure
Posted by: admin in Making art for the sake of it, The poetry of artistic failure, Marge Piercy, The kids are all doing it, The struggles of artists, My published arts writing, Artistic failure in AmericaAn alert reader recently forwarded to me, upon reading my essay about the artistic drive, a poem by Marge Piercy. I was so amazed by how closely this poem’s tone and subject matches up with the tone of my essay that I simply had to post it.
By the way, phlogiston, according to the artist who send the poem, is an alchemical term referring to the hidden fire that lives in wood before it is actually burned. Enjoy the poem.
For the Young Who Want To
by Marge Piercy
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.
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