As you read the following, please don't get me wrong. I have quite a bit of respect for some of you, both as students and as artists.
AS FOR THE REST OF YOU:
Just because you don't have to take lessons practically your whole life and spend at least two hours a day practicing, or learn how to handle paint, canvas, brushes, film, or other physical materials before you even begin creating, or spend your evenings in rehearsals where you get yelled at and criticized and pushed around, or endure physical pain and exhaustion, or spend heaps of money on instruments or supplies, or rearrange your schedule around performances, or endure any of the other trials of the various art forms DOESN'T MEAN THAT CREATIVE WRITING IS ANY EASIER THAN THOSE OTHER ARTS, OR THAT YOU CAN BE A SUCCESSFUL WRITER WITHOUT DEVOTING JUST AS MUCH OF YOUR TIME, SKILL, AND CARE TO WRITING AS YOU WOULD TO ONE OF THEM.
Was it Pound that advised a young poet not to expect any success until he had devoted at least as much time to his art as the average piano teacher does? Well listen to him, classmates, cause he's right, and you're the proof. Yes. You. All of you out there who are slacking through our classes turning in crap poetry, not doing the readings, and giving completely non-helpful peer reviews. You prove that statement over and over again.
Writing may look less rigorous than the other arts, but you know what? It's every bit as hard. You have to spend hours alone thinking before you even start writing, then spend more hours alone writing and revising. You have to have the patience to agonize over every word, punctuation mark, and line break. You have to train yourself to be alert and receptive to the meaning that hides behind the physical world. And you have to read. If you don't, you miss the benefit of observing other artists practice their craft. And as a result, your style, vision, and scope remain the same semester after semester. If you spend your weekends playing Dungeons and Dragons or drinking or watching TV, then you will never have anything in your soul or your mind worth writing about. Creative writing is dependent upon the agility and originality of your mind. So nourish it. Go read a couple of hundred books and do something with your lives, because your poems are boring me to tears.
Oh, yeah, and about the 'religious artist' thing. Yeah. Please, never call me that again, or relegate my work to a niche just because it includes religious themes and references. If you think about death, you write about death. If you think about love, you write about love. If you're looking out the window and you see an interesting scene, you write about it. I AM NO DIFFERENT. I think about God, therefore I write about Him. I ponder my faith, therefore I write about it. IT'S THAT SIMPLE, FOLKS. I'm just another artist writing about the things important to me.
Oh, and just because you're agnostic doesn't mean that you can write in my peer reviews that you "just don't get religious stuff" so you're not going to bother to comment on my work. If you wrote a poem about a musician, say, that referenced events in his career and quoted lines from his songs, I'd go look him up so I could critique your work intelligently. Yes, those quotations are from the Bible. But you know what? You could have figured that out for yourself. THAT'S WHAT GOOGLE IS FOR, FOR PETE'S SAKE. But no. I'm a 'religious poet,' so you think you're exempt from making any effort to understand my work.
Today I got back a peer review that said "Caitlin, as much as I love your work, I'd like to see what you could do if you stopped using so much religious imagery." Listen up, all of you: I am a Christian. I am an artist. Ergo, "religious stuff" is ALWAYS going to be part of my work. GET OVER IT.
Come on people. Is this really the best you can do?
Sincerely,
Caitlin
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