How Gems Are Born, (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

To say

“pens don’t matter”

To say

“Awful poems don’t matter”

To say

“Just move on”

Is to ignore

The imperfect

The discarded

The cracked sidewalk

The perilous cliff

The scraped knees

The constant uncertainty

The discomfort of being

Outside your comfort

Zone.
(end)

I have been told many times over 30 years that my poetry sucks. I always ask that person, “Which one?”. I cannot nor will ever claim every piece is brilliant. But I put every single piece of work out there, good and bad, because it is how I keep moving.

Most artists, be they painters or poets hide their not so good ones, but not me. I want people to see all of my work so that they will be inspired to keep going. It isn’t about failure, it isn’t about fear. It is about putting it all out there, so that people can see that stopping is the worst thing an artist can do to the world out of some sense of insecurity.

The world is imperfect, and to say you have to be a perfectionist in art is to limit yourself and set yourself up for the ultimate failure of quitting. I look at my poetry much like a high speed automatic camera. I just keep shooting and shooting and shooting, and not every picture will be brilliant, but occasionally you take one that people really like.