Continuing my rejection-revision saga, this was a tweet attributed to the quirkily brilliant alien Jon Sun: “editing is easier than writing bc writing only works when u believe u dont suck and editing only works when u believe u do”
That was… painfully relevant. Painfully.
those two imposters
this poem is me, faking
that i know how to rhyme
and balance lightly, meter, & do so all the timea rule in poem-making
to make the stanzas chime
in poems is me, faking
that I know how to rhymemy word choice is painstaking,
my rhetoric, sublime
a single phrase illuminates, and shifts a paradigm —
but poetry? Me? Faking
that I know how to rhyme
and balance lightly, meter, & do so, all the time
“The first problem of any kind of even limited success is the unshakeable conviction that you are getting away with something and that any moment now they will discover you.” ~ Neil Not-Getting-Away-With-It Gaiman.
::Sigh:: I know, from watching other people do so, that you can disbelieve your way out of a field. So, there is a trick to this that one must perform daily, or else.
(Point of interest: this poem is a variation on the Italian form called a madrigal(e). I thought one only sang those, but perhaps not. “Those two imposters” refers, of course, to Kipling’s “If,” stanzas of which we memorized in the fifth grade, and used for handwriting lessons as well – “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster/ And treat those two imposters just the same…” I am torn between nostalgia and exasperation at the memory of that poem, and how hard we tried to live up to all of that… so we could be “a Man, my son.” Good grief.)