Soapbox

Fearless Mediocrity

    Many years ago my pastor once asked me if I would play the piano one Sunday when the regular pianist would be gone. I wanted to help out but didn't want to play- if you've ever heard me play the piano, you know why. But it was me, or no music at all, so I banged my way through the hymns and at least kept everyone on pitch. In encourageing me to accept the request, my sister said something about it that stuck with me:

   Sometimes in life it's important to cultivate a fearless willingness to be mediocre.

And so I have been doing that- well, minus the fearless part. But most of us know we'll never be great at anything, and yet we slog along, motivated by some other factors. We accept that we are mediocre, because someone has to be, right? We can't all be stars.

   A few weeks ago I was invited to attend a series of writing workshops- "Salon" they call them, which seems like a fancy name for a bunch of people meeting in the back room of the MCL Cafeteria in Reynoldsburg, but then, this is not a group of people quietly embracing the possibility of mediocrity.
     The woman who facilitates the group, who invited me to join is someone I know through my regular poetry night and consider to be quite a good poet, so I was flattered to be asked. I knew that she wasn't going to be there for the first gathering but bravely faced snowy roads on Saturday morning, completely unsure what or who to expect.

    Due to the weather there were only a few of us there, and the morning kicked off with us going around the circle explaining who we are and where we have been published, where we have submitted writing recently, our strategies we have found helpful in getting poems published, etc. I sat there listening politely, pretending to take notes in my little notebook, thinking What in the hell am I doing here?  Great. Awkward and out of place right out of the gate, and it went downhill from there. 
    We then talked about what poets we read, and which had been our most powerful influences. I was in a semi-panic as the talk went around the circle. Everyone was naming poets I have never even heard of, let alone read. I felt myself in danger of doing a Radar O'Reilly: "Ah! Bach!"   nodding my head and acting like I knew what they were talking about when clearly I did not.

    The truth is I don't really read poets. I like to listen to poetry, and when it comes along, I read it. In my entire life I suspect I have only read about 4 or 5 books of poetry cover to cover, and the only one I"ve read twice is Emily Dickinson. I am pretty sure one does not impress the self-admiring minor literati of Columbus with "I'll tell you how the sun rose- a ribbon at a time". I tried to demure from the question entirely, ended up defending Miss Emily, mentioning Leonard Cohen and threw in mention of a poet I was sure they had never heard of but whose book I actually have read cover to cover- a guy I went to high school with. (Thanks, Mr. Loomis, for giving me a little cred!)
.
    I had chosen for my workshop poem the one I wrote about my stepfather Larry's death, called "The Sisters or Mercy". I picked it because I love the poem,  but I had struggled with several parts of it and knew it could use a little work in those areas. And admittedly, I thought it good enough that this group, whomever they are, would basically like it and think I was not totally mediocre.
     My first mistake was in chosing a poem that I have a strong emotional connection to. I know that now. Some poems are like your children- some are about your children- and no one wants to hand their children over to people who do not like, or at least respect them.

   I passed out a copy to everyone as per instructions and read it aloud. When I finished there was a silence, and then a heavy sigh and the sound of a pencil being tossed down in frustration from the woman sitting next to me- who just happens to be an editor for "Pudding House", a very small local outfit that publishes chat books for local poets. In other words- she is the editor, or has been at one time- for all of the other people in the room save myself. Small pond- meet the big fish!
    I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck. I stared dumbly at my paper before me and as she began to speak  the words clanged around in my brain,
      "Oh my god- she f**king hates it!!"
Oh, yes indeed she did. It is cliched, emotionally manipulative, melodramatic and the ending is a mistake that only a rank amature would make. She didn't actually say "I've read poems by 8th graders that were better" but that was the impression I was getting.

   The other people there were much more polite, and offered constructive suggestions in a respectful manner, some of which made sense: in other words, exactly what I had come there for. But the vibe from this woman was so strong that when 3 o'clock arrived (I had to leave early to get to work) I was never so happy to  leave a room.

   I've thought about the whole writing thing a lot since then. I've thought about ego (which normally isn't too much of an issue for me) and hypersensitivity (which often is) and how much of which is coming into play here.  I am thinking ahead to the Salon next month. I told myself that I am not going to be a baby, and any way, I paid for an entire year so I should hold my head up and go, and I"ll probably learn a lot, even if I do end up somewhat bloodied. No pain, no gain, right?

   Frankly, I have felt paralyzed, utterly unable to write since that day, which disturbs me more than the Pudding Pop lady's unkind manner. I pulled out the poem in question today, now that I am not so raw and I've had time to digest the experience. I tried to implement some of the suggestions from the other writers.
   It was like trying to paint with your eyes closed. When I tried to make one of the changes they all insisted it needed, it just seemed forced, no matter what I tried. The poem felt dead to me, like a wax effigy of an emotion I once tried to capture on paper. Yet at one time, that poem was window that allowed me to revisit exactly the moment it describes. That's why I liked it so much, and now I lost it.

    I guess I"m going to workshop next month. Maybe I"ll be lucky and there will be so many people (I'm told there sometimes are) that they won't get to everybody, and I can just sit and listen and maybe learn a little without having to go under the knife. Maybe the editor lady was just in a bad mood and she'll be less brusque in her critique. My current plan is to take poem that I really feel no emotional investment in, so that if it gets killed like the first one I won't really care.

   But all this leads me back to the thought of mediocrity, and of why I write. Like Mr Tanner in the song, I write- as I sing and play and paint- because it makes me happy, and it makes me whole. I have no illusions that I will ever be anything but mediocre, and really, that's ok.
    I write for me, because I have to get it out. It's nice if other people like what I write, and its great if it can be fulfilling to me  and good at the same time. But maybe it can't. Maybe my skill is so poor that, in order to rise above mediocrity, to make it marketable and accessable to readers, I have to kill it for myself. 
    That's not a sacrifice I'm going to make.  I don't write to be "good". I write to be true. And if my limited talent is such that I can't do both….  I pick true.
    After all, some of us have to be mediocre in order to let the others shine by comparison.
 

He came home to Dayton and was questioned by his friends
Then he smiled and just said nothing- and he never sang again-
excepting very late at night, when the shop was dark and closed.
He sang softly to himself as he sorted through the clothes.

Music was his life- it was not his livelihood.
It made him feel so happy, and it made him feel so good.
and he sang from his heart, and he sang from his soul.
He did not know how well he sang~
it just made him whole.

"Mr Tanner" by Harry Chapin