Well, that could have gone better. I posted my 'masterpiece poem' on my blog and attached a link on that most (usually) supportive and friendly of forums, Facebook. This A215 group on Facebook is where you go if you're unsure of your work. It a place where - in this case during the poetry phase - you could post a non rhyming limerick, that doesn't scan, isn't funny, and is for good measure, offensive - perhaps even to its Facebook audience, and you can be assured of at least twenty 'likes' and 15 comments. Probably a lot more if others are, as they are at the moment, touting for support for their own work.
Whether it is because I posted on a Saturday - perhaps people have a lot more important things to do on this, the best of day of the week for most. Or whether I mistimed the posting - too close to lunch time perhaps, too soon after breakfast, too close to hangover time, or, perhaps my poem is so astonishingly bad people just didn't feel like lying to me, I don't know. But I reckon I must have broken something of a record for apathetic responding on this group for a posted work. One 'like' three 'comments.' I kid not. I have seen better responses from comments like 'poetry is crap' and 'anyone who likes poetry is sad and deluded.' Mainly these are put up by wind up merchants who are spoiling for a fight and who've been beaten with the misanthropic stick during their imprinting phase. And before you start to think that, 'well, anything that makes people angry will provoke a response’ some of the multitude of comments generated nearly always include 'I feel your pain,' 'you're right', and 'everyone's entitled to their opinion' And even 'Yes, I have been waiting for someone to say that, please marry me!' OK, I made that last one up, but only just!
The quantity of tumbleweed that swirled past my posting, given the nature of this group, was quite frankly astonishing. But I think I have some answers.
I think probably there is some truth to the timing, but I'm not egotistical to think that was the only cause. My poem is unusual in that it wasn’t particularly emotional. It wasn't funny, nor was it particularly profound. It didn't hint at some psychological truth, or something tragic in my background, and it wasn't a pitch for chocolate box expression of the year, nor will the greeting card companies be beaten a feverish path to my door with fistfuls of fivers. It was a narrative story with verbal effects. That's it. That's all it was. And the silence was deafening. Perhaps the good folk at Facebook are so nice, so supportive they thought: this man is a tragedy and is in partial meltdown if he believes this is a poem the best we can do is leave him to his delusion, and hope that he recovers in private and in silence. And sits down and tries to understand, that is not the sort of poem anyone had in mind.
Now as John Travolta memorably said in the film Pulp Fiction after being fed through the emotional mangle and emerging as a hollowed out shell with the face of dead man: 'If you don't mind I think I'll go now and have a heart attack! '
Ah well life writing here we come. Question is will I post any for peer opinion. Somehow I doubt it.
Please don't let a lack of response put you off poetry. In my tutor group, right up until the night before TMA 3 was due, people were posting poems and comments like crazy, then after the deadline came, the group went quiet again (with the exception of one person who always comments). I think people are just taking a break from poetry. Some are still waiting for their results and have put everything else on hold until they get their results.
ReplyDeleteAlso, there have been quite a few people off on tutorials and some went to the residential course, the manor (can't remember its name).
I know it is hard not to, but don't take the lack of response as a slight against your work.