The Identity Complex of a Poet

[sexbeat_go]

I've only been published in one journal. My poems have been rejected by Poetry and by the Omnidawn Press poetry competition. This shouldn't make me feel like less of a poet, but it does. I've read the Language poets, studied with Charles Bernstein, I know all about "official verse culture" and it's trappings, and yet I can't help feeling like a

Comments

[vidyarajah]

Keep writing. That's all I can really tell you

[sexbeat_go]

With me, it's more a matter of acceptance and recognition by people I see as my peers. These people are ardently anti-academic and doggedly unmainstream (like Charles Bernstein who I have some contact with, K. Silem Mohammad, Ron Silliman, Christian Bok, Bruce Andrews, etc). I mean they think the academy can be used as a tool, but the academy and writing programs as currently composed are anathema to them and they see value in some "mainstream poets" (the eternally controversial John Ashbery, Ann Lauterbach, Muriel Rukeyser for instance), but for the most part are more interested in more avant-garde and experimental and culture-fucking and subversive tendencies. The problem is, they've become so distrustful because of the attacks from the mainstream and academy, from the Right and the Left, it's hard to gain access. They've become protectively insulated I think. The thing is if you can catch their eye or ear, they're incredibly generous. Its just they find themselves on the defensive so often, it's difficult to be open.

[sexbeat_go]

Another thought. ALOT of these people are NY based. And I am in Philadelphia.

[vidyarajah]

Sometimes, in order to be seen as an up-and-coming peer, you really do have to be *seen around