Why is my poetry so remarkably well crafted, so effective, so excellent in every way? Why is everything I've written superior to so much of what I continually find in the literature, both past and present? Indeed why do I know more things than other people? Why, in fact, am I so clever?
OK, before everyone gets upset:
We all know about the word "you" being both singular and plural (the source of much confusion), but hardly anyone ever talks about the same problem with the word "I." Yes, "I" can be both singular and plural. It can refer to the "I" who is writing this blog post (I, Victor Grauer), but it can also refer to the "I" of each and every other person in the world. Everyone is, from his/her point of view, an "I." And that's the "I" referred to here, the plural "I." Not necessarily I, Victor Grauer, but I, everyone else as well. The general "I," or in this particular case, the "I" of each poet who takes his/her work seriously.
I'm not talking here about beginners, or part-time poets of the type who never feel adequate and continually want to "improve" their work by soliciting criticism from others. I'm talking about those of us who've gotten beyond that point and feel confident we know what we're doing and how best to do it. And the disease just about all us "I"s suffer from is the conviction that "my" work is not only decent or simply good, but in fact: excellent. If we didn't believe our work was excellent we wouldn't bother to sweat and slave over each and every syllable now would we. Or, to put it another way, if we didn't feel capable of producing excellent work we wouldn't sweat and slave over every syllable until we'd achieved that goal. Otherwise, what would be the point? A poem that isn't excellent isn't worth appearing in public, we all know that, right? So we keep working at it until it is. And if we can't achieve excellence then we put it aside, hoping to do better with it at some future time.
The problem is: not everyone agrees on what is excellent and what isn't. Poets praised to the skies by the usual authority figures have their critics and even detractors, who may well find their work grossly overrated. Even the most widely recognized artist has been known to suffer bitterly when confronted with skeptics who see fatal flaws where others see genius. There is in fact no final judge out there to evaluate in some ultimate sense whether any given poem is bad, good, weak, strong, shallow, deep, poor or excellent.
We're all familiar with the saying, "There is no accounting for tastes," so maybe we can just accept that there will always be differences of opinion, agreeing to disagree. I once had a student who reacted negatively to even the most respectful suggestions for improving even a small detail in her work. "I like it better my way. And besides, it's all a matter of opinion, and my opinion is just as valid as yours." "Well, excuse me young lady but I have a Hell of a lot more training and experience in this field than you do so my opinion does in fact count for more than yours. And besides it's up to me to grade your work, so you better damn well show some respect for my 'opinion.' "
Of course I didn't actually say that. First because it would be rude and unfair. And second because intimidation never works anyhow. But I did think something along those lines, as her attitude annoyed Hell out of me. Until I remembered that I was a lot like that when I was a student. No matter how feeble my results I always resisted any attempts to alter even the smallest detail. "But that's what I wanted," I'd insist. And yes, I could always console myself by insisting that my opinion was just as good as anyone else's. After all, "there is no accounting for tastes."
Only there is. Tastes must be accounted for. There must be standards. Everything is not the same. Some things are worthy of praise while others not so much. When I insist that my work is excellent I don't mean it's excellent "in my opinion," only according to my own personal standards, but that it is excellent period. According to any standard. That's what it means to claim something is "excellent." Any self respecting artist is in it not only to satisfy himself but to attain something beyond himself, to meet some standard that transcends the self. Yet at the same time one is forced to admit that others might not agree. And in the absence of some absolute judge whose opinion could never be challenged, no one can ever be confident that one is right about the value of one's own work.
Thus. And so. One is forced to make a choice, however arbitrary: either I wring my hands in despair, afraid of claiming any virtues for my own work because, after all, "there is no accounting for tastes"; or I insist against all reason on its excellence in the face of any and all challenges. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzche tackled the problem head-on in his remarkable autobiographical study, Ecce Homo, with chapter headings such as: Why I am so Wise; Why I am so Clever; Why I Write such Excellent Books. Nietzche had no patience for the hand-wringers of the world and these chapter headings were obviously intended to offend them.
Did he actually believe that he was wise, that he was clever, that his books were excellent? Well, of course he did. Why wouldn't he? Yet virtually everyone who read that book at the time was offended by those headings. As I see it, this was Nietzche's intention: to force readers to confront the hypocrisy inherent in their attitudes toward what was considered good and bad "taste." Why is it necessarily in bad taste to honestly assert one's well deserved feelings of superiority? On the other hand, we are forced, even today, to acknowledge that Nietzche was an impossible narcissist, snob and bully, with no tolerance for anyone whose opinions differed from his own.
So, what are we to make of all this and what should our attitude be? Or, more to the point, what do I myself make of all this, and am I really as convinced as Nietzche that my work is truly excellent? While I don't see myself as a hand-wringer, I don't see myself as a Nietzche either. I do truly believe that my poems (and other creative endeavors) are excellent, but I'm perfectly willing to accept that others might well disagree. Ultimately, what's most important to me is that others find things in my work that reach them in some meaningful way and encourage them to read on. In a certain sense, excellence is beside the point.
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