“ ‘Is it because…?’ A Self-Diagnosis ”

As a writer, I have many vices. Far too many, in fact, for me to go into too much detail here. But I’m sure that you can guess what a few of them are. Booze. Nicotine. A primal attraction to dangerous situations.  However, none of these compare to my ability to procrastinate doing the work that I know I should be doing, like writing. As my friend Jessica so aptly points out in her new blog Instead of Writing, I…, writers are notorious for their ability to put off actually writing in favor of, say, more fun things. Like trolling the internet. Or binge watching all of the episodes of House, MD on Netflix. What we’re not so great at doing is forcing ourselves to sit down with a pen and paper, or a typewriter, or a laptop to actually do what the muses have called us to do.  In this regard, I am no different than any of my peers; perhaps with the exception of my other friend Sarah, who sits down every day to work on some piece or project that she’s had going for weeks, months, and sometimes even years. The world and my imagination are, simply put, just too interesting to ignore (as many of my writer friends would agree). Now you would think such a stunning realization would fuel my creativity.  On the contrary. Often times it stifles it. I experience sensory overload on a daily basis; and yet, I struggle to put those thoughts, observations, and interactions into words. Why? Because….ooh, look at that squirrel over there! I rest my case. 

Looking back on this blog and what I’ve actually written for it, I am woefully underwhelmed with how it, a tool I created in order to break free from the irons of writers’ block, has, itself, become yet another example of how extremely skilled I have become at procrastinating the doing of things that actually matter to me. About a year and a half ago, I found myself sitting at a cafe in Miami with my adoptive mother, discussing how I couldn’t seem to produce anything worthwhile (or even anything that could even pass itself off as half-decent). She suggested that I create a blog, for no-one in particular. Just a blog, something to write about, so that I could have an outlet for my thoughts, ideas, and feelings.

“Feelings. Blegh. Those are the things you accidentally fall into when you aren’t paying attention to your surroundings. They’re what cause problems. And then you have to deal with those problems, or they become bigger problems. It’s a vicious chocolate and vanilla swirl of doom.”

However, in the time since I’ve planted my flag on this little plot of cyber-space real estate (props if you made the disjointed logical leap to a pop culture reference), I’ve come to realize that on some level she was right. We all need an outlet, no matter what we do or where our passions lie. So what is it that causes passionate people to put their passions on the back burner, so to speak? Life? The Internet? Everything? I’ll be the first to admit that George Takei’s postings do take up a lot of my time when I’m not at work; or when I’m not out and about doing “research.” And by research, I mean hanging out at a bar, drinking cheap beer and taking shots of even cheaper bourbon.

But back to the question at hand. Why do we procrastinate? See even now, I’m doing it. What I don’t lack is a routine, which, as Jessica pointed out, can sometimes become cumbersome, and in some cases, result in a case of writers’ block as impenetrable as a Greek Phalanx. What I do lack is confidence in my own ability to write something worthwhile, something substantial, or something that will one day matter. Poems that, as my mentor Lisa Russ Spaar is so fond of saying, “…are so good that you feel as though the top of your head has been taken off by the time you finish reading them."

Mine isn’t a problem of procrastinating for procrastinations sake; it’s a problem of trying so hard to write my masterpiece before it's due, that my artistic self-deprecation has been running at critical mass for so long, that it’s turned into self-destruction far before my time. I have taken Hemingway’s mantra of “Write drunk. Edit sober” and combined it with T.S. Elliot’s neurosis to create a volatile combination. Whether or not that quotation can actually be attribute to Hemingway is neither here nor there. It’s the sentiment behind it that counts.

In my own writing, I find that, more and more, I have to slip into alternate states of consciousness in order to generate material. It’s a slippery slope. And what’s even more worrisome to me is that I often feel I reached the pinnacle of my creativity during the four years that I spent as a student at U.Va. That was around the same time that I discovered the poet Tom Andrews’ lyric sequence of Unfilmable Films: poems written in the form of screenplays that increase in either absurdity or psycho-terror, until “…surely even Tim Burton would throw up his hands at this point in the script…” It’s even my belief that I have spent far too much time as a denizen of Ashbury Land — an amusement park, located on a heath somewhere in the British Isles, that features an impressively stellar array of psychotropic rides.

What happens next, you may ask? Unfortunately, I do not have an answer to that question. Either I’ll hit a major breakthrough in the not-too-distant future; or they’ll find me alone in my apartment, wearing a white dress, sexually repressed, and writing poems about how sexually repressed I am. At this point, the only detail missing from this scene is the white dress.

Which brings me back to my original question: why don’t I write more? What, exactly, is standing in my way? In many regards, it’s my own conviction that what I imagine isn’t good enough; and yet, in others, it’s a more deeply rooted question that is linked to an assumption that the scope of my obsessions (love, sex, the divine, ecstasy) are too narrow, in the sense that I focus on my experiences as a gay man; growing up in the South; coming out in a small town; and then finding myself while attending a university that, at times, can simultaneously be a bastion of liberal thought and conservative idealism.

And so I’m led to the conclusion that mine is not an issue of skill, or really a lack of self-confidence in my abilities as a writer; but rather an inability to face myself; an unwillingness to come to terms with my reality; and an aversion to indicting society on the grounds of what I see as unjust for fear of the inevitable backlash. But isn’t that the principal function of writing, of all art?

L'art pour L'art.

Die Kunst für die Kunst.

For me, what is needed is an injunction against fear, judgement, and criticism.  

Recently, I finished Louise Glück’s collection, Vita Nova. I would like to leave you with just one poem (of many), relevant to this essay:

“Earthly Terror”

I stood at the gate of a rich city.

I had everything the gods required; 

I was ready; the burdens

of preparation had been long.

And the moment was the right moment, 

the moment assigned to me. 

//

Why were you afraid?

//

The moment was the right moment; 

response must be ready.

On my lips, 

the words trembled that were 

the right words. Trembled  — 

//

and I knew that if I failed to answer

quickly enough, I would be turned away.

   "10 Things You Should Probably Never Say to a Poet"

  So after an unbearably long series of extremely bad dates, I’ve decided to write this helpful guide for the over-enthusiastic individual who thinks that they’re brave enough to have a conversation with a poet.  Please pay attention.  These tips may just save your life and/or your ego.  But they’re the same thing for you, aren’t they?  Thanks goes to the light of my life and partner-in-crime, Zoë Artime Worrell, for sharing many of these same experiences with me and for helping me to continually re-validate my assumption that I’m always right.

DISCLAIMER: If you feel personally attacked or belittled, I’m sorry; but I did, in fact, mean it that way.  It is, however, entirely possible that I’ve inadvertently become a bitter old queen well before my time.

1.  “OMG, you’re a poet?!  Would you/will you write a poem about me?  I’d love to be in your poem!”

No.  No, you wouldn’t.  And no, I will not write a poem about you.  In fact, by the time that I do write a poem about you, you probably wouldn’t want to read it.  Poetry isn’t all sentimental diarrhea that some misunderstood young adult just crapped onto a page and called “art.”

2.  “You like Emily Dickinson?  OMG, me too!  Her pastoral imagery and view on nature is so uplifting!”  

(Silence.  Crickets Chirping.)  In the time that it’s taken me to actually process your naïvety, I could have written a poem about how fucking retarded you are.  Dickinson is not a happy poet.  You, my friend, and I say this with love, are DELUSIONAL.  Anyone with an Intelligence Quotient above .01 can tell that she’s not happy.  Does the phrase “the most sexually repressed woman in history” mean anything to you?  And yes, I did  actually un-abbreviate IQ for you; because I’m not actually convinced that you know what it stands for.  Now while we’re on the subject, would all of you high-school graduates and psychotically upbeat little twerps please quit reciting Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” during celebratory events (i.e. valedictory exercises, graduations, and weddings for Christ’s sake)?  The man is talking about killing himself.  Suicide.  As for Dickinson, read the “Fascicle 15” and then get back to me on how “happy and upbeat of a poet” Dickinson really is.  

3.  “Robert Frost is the greatest American poet ever to live.  I just love how inspired his work is.”  

See above comments on your mental health.  Delusional.  But then again, I guess if you’d lost your father to tuberculosis at the age of 11 and had been left with $8 to your family’s name; and had had four of your six children die or commit suicide, you would be “inspired,” too.  Let’s not forget that Frost was the son of an alcoholic and that his mother was severely depressed.  Oh, and in 1920, he was forced to commit his sister to a mental hospital, where she died 9 years later.  That’s one chummy bloke in my book.  That being said, he is brilliant and I do enjoy his work. 

4.  “Ginsberg was a God among men.”

While I think that Ginsberg would definitely have agreed with your, how shall we say, rapier analysis of his own self-worth in the world (and while I may tend to agree, however begrudgingly, with you on this point), let’s just pause for a moment.  This man was high as a kite for most of his young-adult life. That's the only thing that you really need to know about this angelheaded hipster.  Ginsberg is difficult, in general; so let’s just stop while you’re behind.

  5.  “Sylvia Plath has got to be one of my favorite poets.  She showed me real beauty in the world.”

Yeah, I bet.  You and about a million other people who have egregiously mis-interpreted her work for decades.  Beauty.  Really?  Because the only thing that she showed me was the inside of a gas oven as she turned her head into a soufflé.  Don’t get me wrong.  I have tremendous respect for the work that Plath produced and the groundwork she laid for confessional poetry.  In fact I return to her work time and again.  But shit, really?

6.  “My favorite movement in the history of poetry is definitely the romantic period.”

It’s true.  I’ll give you that one.   Wordsworth, Blake, Lord Byron, and Keats were some down ass bitches.  

7.  “My life was changed by the words of Alfred Lord Tennyson.”

...said no-one, ever.  You may as well gouge your eyes our with a spork, because you don’t deserve to live.  Just because some frumpy female British monarch named him Poet Laureate for the empire doesn’t mean he was good at it.  In fact it fails the mutually inclusive test.

8.  “A manuscript for a writing contest?  That sounds really creative.  What is it about, if I may ask?”

Why yes, it is really creative: hence the nature of art. Well done!  You’re a regular, bonafide Sherlock Holmes, you are.  I can’t believe you just asked me what my manuscript was about.  That’s almost as bad as you asking me to write you a poem.  But since you asked, I'll provide an answer: let me get back to you on that one when I fucking know what my manuscript is actually about; cause heaven knows I don’t have a god-dammed clue.  It's not a joke; I really have no idea what the hell I’m writing about anymore.

9. Situation: [After misguidedly showing someone your work] “These are so great.  You’re really gifted!  Where do you get your inspiration from?”

Your face.  I honestly have no idea.  Why don’t you ask the dead guy over there in the gutter?

10.  Situation: [And, if I still haven’t learned my lesson, and have again mistakenly shown my work to other non-writers, and if this individual actually possesses the clarity of thought and adeptness required to formulate a cohesive thought, my all-time favorite] 

“You write about sex and fucking and the darkness that follows, like, a lot.  Have you ever tried [insert incomprehensibly lewd sexual act here]?”