Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting.
Work is what you have done
after the play is produced
and the audience claps.
Before that friends keep asking
when you are planning to go
out and get a job.
Genius is what they know you
had after the third volume
of remarkable poems. Earlier
they accuse you of withdrawing,
ask why you don’t have a baby,
call you a bum.
The reason people want M.F.A.’s,
take workshops with fancy names
when all you can really
learn is a few techniques,
typing instructions and some-
body else’s mannerisms
is that every artist lacks
a license to hang on the wall
like your optician, your vet
proving you may be a clumsy sadist
whose fillings fall into the stew
but you’re certified a dentist.
The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.
End of the poem
15 random poems
- The Alien poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster
- Николай Заболоцкий – Поход
- Николай Заболоцкий – Ласточка
- Шекспир – Люби другого – Сонет 139
- Robert Burns: Halloween: The following poem will, by many readers, be well enough understood; but for the sake of those who are unacquainted with the manners and traditions of the country where the scene is cast, notes are added to give some account of the principal charms and spells of that night, so big with prophecy to the peasantry in the west of Scotland. The passion of prying into futurity makes a striking part of the history of human nature in its rude state, in all ages and nations; and it may be some entertainment to a philosophic mind, if any such honour the author with a perusal, to see the remains of it among the more unenlightened in our own.-R.B.
- A Poet’s Welcome to his Love-Begotten Daughter by Robert Burns
- Олег Григорьев – Яма
- My Mother by Mahmoud Darwish
- Night Launch by Sonya Ki Tomlinson
- Sonnet 73: That time of year thou mayst in me behold by William Shakespeare
- Sonnet CXXVII by William Shakespeare
- Lead Soldiers poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Иван Демьянов – Одежкин домик
- Виктор Калитин – Фиалка
- Morgan’s Curse by Shel Silverstein
Some external links:
Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the US
Quant.com – a search engine from France, and also an alternative, at least for Europe
Yandex – the Russian search engine (it’s probably the best search engine for image searches).