Mom Gets My Book

Mom phoned from Arizona to tell me through her tears -- she lost a brother, 88, last week and a sister-in-law, 81, on Monday -- that she received my book in the mail, thought it was nice, and although it was not written for people like herself, she was reading it. How glad she was, too, I had sent her something she didn't already have.

This is the first book I have ever sent her. Mom is not a reader or a net surfer; it is unlikely that she knows previous books exist. Close relatives who received the earlier books responded, shall we say, frostily -- a response richly deserved because I sincerely don't care whether they like what I write. I don't write for family. This time, instead of bothering them with a new book, I sent them my new author photograph. Sounds awful, but we manage to get along only through denial and ignorance of what we each care about; there is so much more, like blood, that unites us.

Doris Lessing was once asked if her mother was not mortified by her novels, which include sex scenes and whatnot. Lessing replied, "Mothers die much less readily than they would have you think."

But why risk it?

When Poets Gave Orders

"We order that the poets’ rights be revered:

• To enlarge the scope of the poet’s vocabulary with arbitrary and derivative words (word-novelty).
• To feel an insurmountable hatred for the language existing before their time.
• To push with horror off their proud brow the wreath of cheap fame that You have made from bathhouse switches [clearer translation: "from toothpicks"].
• To stand on the rock of the word “we” amidst the sea of boos and outrage."

The above is from the Russian Futurists' manifesto, "A Slap in the Face of Public Taste," 1912. By comparison, our poets are people-pleasers and wusses. Each of these century-old demands is, for poets in 2008, a total taboo. We say, "I don't think your experiment with coining new words is very successful," and "I don't know where you'll find a market for this," and "If only I could make it into Best American Poetry 2009," and "I can't figure out who is that collective 'we' being referenced in your poem."

By comparison, how timid we are! And how powerless! Are those things linked?

Anne Sexton Told Erica Jong

In the '70s Erica Jong, about to publish her second book of poetry, told Anne Sexton she feared that the critics would hammer it. Sexton wrote back:

Don't dwell on the book's reception. The point is to get on with it--you have a life's work ahead of you--no point in dallying around waiting for approval. We all want it, I know, but the point is to reach out honestly--that's the whole point. I keep feeling that there isn't one poem being written by any of us--or a book or anything like that. The whole life of us writers, the whole product I guess I mean, is the one long poem--a community effort if you will. It's all the same poem. It doesn't belong to any one writer--it's God's poem perhaps. Or God's people's poem. You have the gift--and with it comes responsibility--you mustn't neglect or be mean to that gift--you must let it do its work. It has more rights than the ego wants approval.

I'm wondering whether Sexton was right, or if it's "Writer, Keep the Faith While Society Flays You" feel-good wishful thinking that Sexton herself did not believe -- which would explain why she wrote this using so many qualifiers -- and that she herself could not use.

Quoted from: Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life, by Erica Jong. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2006.