A bit of a conversation with myself
ME: I should probably write new stuff ME: Why? ME: To stay relevant ME: How does that work then? ME: I need to write new poems that people haven't read before so they know I'm paying attention to the world and giving them what they want. ME: Right. How's that working out for you? ME: It's pretty exhausting, to be honest. I've got quite a lot of old poems that more or less cover what I want to say, because frankly there's not a great deal that's new happening in the world. ME: So what makes you think that writing something new will get people to read when they haven't read your old stuff? ME: Well it's the internet, isn't it? Got to have fresh new content every day or people lose interest. ME: Seems like most people have already lost interest in pretty much everything and are just clicking random shit to avoid actually thinking for themselves. ME: Yeah. So I should give them more random shit, right? ME: Ever seen anyone post a poem by Keats or Byron or Tennyson or Whitman or Ginsberg or Rimbaud or Wilde or Thomas or Yeats as a comment on something that's happening right now? ME: Sure, all the time. ME: And there's a good chance people have read those poems before, right? ME: Of course. They're by famous poets. ME: How much new content are they pumping out these days? ME: Yeah, not a lot. ME: So why do you have to when you've already got perfectly good poems that say what you want to say? Why try saying it again? Isn't that just repeating yourself? ME: Sure, but nobody will notice if I repeat myself because they weren't listening the first time. ME: So just use your old poems if they weren't paying attention to them before, and they'll either pay attention this time or ignore them completely. And if they ignore them, you haven't actually lost anything because they ignored them already. ME: Right. Like those lazy dead poets. Do you think I should stage my own death? ME: Couldn't hurt. ME: But people read poems by dead famous dudes because they're important poems. ME: What makes them important? Isn't it just that someone -- or probably a lot of someones -- in authority has decreed them important? ME: They're the canon though. ME: That's what I just said. And haven't you read poems that weren't in the canon that have still made a difference to the way you perceive the world? ME: Sure. And not just limericks either. ME: Limericks are life changing, no doubt about that. But I mean poems by people who aren't famous, or as famous -- maybe just because their PR people are rubbish? ME: My PR people are rubbish. ME: I am my PR people. And that's true. ME: So you're saying I should think of my poems as just as important as Byron's? ME: Sure, why not? ME: Isn't that a bit arrogant? ME: What's wrong with being arrogant if you can back it up? ME: I don't know if I can back it up. ME: Don't be such a whinger and get me a whisky.
