Our 34th anniversary was Saturday. Who would’ve thought? We’ve had this many good years together!
I don’t know how it would be, two poets living and working together. It could be great, helping each other with the work, but on the other hand, there might be a competitiveness that could mess things up. One person gets a book accepted while the spouse has been trying for years. It would take superhuman generosity not to feel some jealousy.
Are cats supposed to be jealous? The green eyes? I found this on Google Images under jealousy.
Most of the time, though, there’s one spouse who’s in the throes of trying to write a book/poem/whatever, while the other does something else. Jerry has long since quit doing scholarship. But even before that, he’s been supportive. You writers know how that feels. To have the person close to you willing to read all stages of your work, not to tamp down your enthusiasm when it’s really not ready yet. To cheer you on when a good poem happens. To be as thrilled when the first box of published books arrives.
It's feels almost like a co-writing. You with your angst and your partner with the steadiness. At least that’s how it’s been for me. One needs the other. If your partner doesn’t have a clue what you’re doing, at least you want respect and encouragement. There needs to be respect for the act of writing.
Virginia and Leonard
Virginia Woolf’s marriage to Leonard was happy even though she also had an affair with Vita Sackville-West. Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne had a deeply meaningful lifelong relationship. Alan Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky. Simone de Beauvoir and John Paul Sartre. I could go on with the good ones.
Among the terrible, destructive pairings: Byron and Claire Clairmont, Charles Dickens and Catherine Hogarth. T.S. Eliot and Vivienne Haigh-Wood, to name a few.
T.S. Eliot and Vivien Haigh-Wood
You need someone, don’t you? Sometimes the intense need crushes the relationship. I think it’s important early in a writing career to have feedback. Most of us who’ve been at this many years don’t need it so much, but we enjoy having a friend whose work we respect reading our new work. And we appreciate a good editor.
Good lord, there are so many writer’s retreats, writer’s classes! That’s one way to get support. What does “support” mean? What do we really need? Not really advice, although sometimes that’s helpful. Mostly, it’s cheering you on for your hard work, your sticking your neck out to write something you’re uncertain about.
There are horror stories about older writers who’ve devastated the ambitions of a young writer. And then there are teachers who praise everything indiscriminately. In between are those who function as smart readers, who offer some thoughts, but only in the nature of offering, not pronouncing.
No one can be creative for us. We can copy others’ ideas, others’ lines, we can depend on AI, but at least for now, there’s the magic space where an idea emerges, makes a surprising connection, and begins to blossom. It’s all ours, and we are smart not to invite help until we’ve sat with it, spent some time with it first, by ourselves. When we’ve gone as far with it as we can, then we might benefit from a good, smart reader.
Jerry will say, “I don’t know what you’re doing here in these lines. It doesn’t seem to make sense.” Then I have to decide if he’s missing the connection or if I haven’t made it well enough. It’s up to me.
The P.S. . . .
I’ll be featured reader at the Northport Arts Association, 301 Mill St, Northport, MI 49670 on Sept. 6, 7-9pm. There will be an open mic first. Come get acquainted with this really nice Village Arts Building.