To Be or Not to Be Public

     An acquaintance long ago told me that an artist is obligated to make his art public--not an altogether original comment, but one I often recall. I would never think to “make public” the self-portrait I painted of myself in high school, yet it hangs in our garage, and those who pass through see it—and sometimes comment on it. Definition 1C of “public” in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary is “perceptible.” Definition 9 from the online World English Dictionary states, “a part or section of the community grouped because of a common interest, activity, etc: the racing public.” The Oxford Online Dictionary of British and World English, under Noun 1, reads, “(one's public) informal: the people who watch or are interested in an artist, writer, or performer,” and under the phrase “go public” states “in public, in view of other people.” The Oxford Dictionary of U.S. English, definition 2, reads “done, perceived, or existing in open view.” My painting, rather unbeknownst to me, is public.

           As I have been thinking and discussing a bit lately, and as confirmed by the various dictionaries, quite obviously there are many ways to make one’s art public. For a grand while in my life, I was a full-time dancer, a dream lived at a rather old age. Though I loved and do love dance, I was fonder of choreography and being around other performers than of performing. Here again, I never considered that I had gone public, and yet, my works were witnessed by small groups who had a common interest: parents, relatives, and friends of students; the church membership; once, a fiber guild; once a fashion show for a boutique; and another glorious once, the audience for “The Nutcracker” one Christmas, when I was an adult in the party scene and pointed my toes three times, chasséed forward and back on the stage, and made one slow turn under my partner’s fingers.

            I have never forgotten how each time I began the transfer of imagined choreography to live bodies, and each time a work was to be performed, I went into an absolute dread, feeling naked and exposed and, as in childbirth, wanting to take it all back. The public is always the hard part of art.

            It is the spark, the fire, the oblivion of the time creating that I crave, that nourish me. But I just don’t seem to have the stuff it takes to make my mark in the world. As a writer, I rarely have the patience for the time-consuming and nerve-racking business of submitting to magazines and literary journals. Having completed an MFA in creative writing, I am no longer interested in writing workshops and groups. There are a few friends who will read my work, but I rarely send it to them. I do believe a dear friend’s long ago advice that when the rejections from journals come in, the poems should be sent right back out, until they find their home, but I’m more likely to ignore the poor, rejected, homeless beings for months and then think I should revise again before sending them out. Perhaps revision is a ploy to not submit. Perhaps I really am not so interested in having my poetry read by a few hundred people who happen to subscribe to a particular literary journal. Perhaps I don’t want to submit because I’ve largely failed in the endeavor and cannot understand why my poems are not the ones that knock the editors’ socks off. Perhaps I’m too lazy to find the “right” fit for my writing. Perhaps I’m just sour grapes.

            So I decided to start throwing my poetry out in the blogosphere, except I almost didn’t, because when I’d revised the first poem for the umpteenth time since it originally came into being years ago, I was petrified of having anyone read it. I screwed up my resolve and put it on my new blog, then almost took it down the same day. But I left it there. A few people even hit “like” on Facebook after going to the link. Or perhaps they just hit “like” because they like the idea that I am doing this but didn’t actually go to the link, let alone read the poem.

            But perhaps if I regularly put a poem on the blog—and that’s a big perhaps, I must confess, given my tendency to hyper focus on one thing at a time—I will find myself ready to submit to the “real” venues more often. Or perhaps, I will find that I really can quit revising a poem until I feel like I may be killing its soul—and that, I think, would be an infinitely good thing for the poems and for me.
          I give you then "Between the Rows" at http://poetryuntethered.blogspot.com.