What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?
I think the longer I do it and the more I make myself write even when I don't think I can. It gets easier to get a poem or a project rolling. For the past three years, after a long time of doing it irregularly, I've been writing almost daily, and the results are usually good. So like running everyday, it gets less painful as time goes on. You just have to show up at your desk with your running shoes on and you're off. The difficulty may have nothing to do with the writing itself for me, but with connecting those poems with readers. Or maybe even knowing there are readers out there at all. You drop a penny down a well and sometimes you hear a little splash but more often, only silence. So you throw another coin in and hope for the best. It isn't entirely about publication and acceptances/rejections, but also about the smaller ways you feel someone is actually reading what you're writing. That silence is terrible, and the more excited you are about what you've created, the worse it is. I don't feel this as much with visual art, which I think is an easier sell with a wider audience. Everyone, even non-creatives, can look at a collage or painting and fall in love with it. The audience for poetry is so small, mostly poets themselves and there are so many of us writing it. It's sometimes amazing anyone sees it at all.
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