I Write, Not in Search of an Audience, but in Search of My Reader
How words can make a difference, even in the smallest of ways
Yes, I write in search of my reader, not seeking to build an audience. Truth be told, that’s not even really why I write. I write because I want to see where the pen will go today, what kind of trip it will take me on. Sometimes, the view becomes interesting enough or new enough or fascinating enough for me to want to say to someone — anyone, “Look at that! Isn’t it amazing!”, to want to share whatever the new idea or thought or understanding I have come to, or am coming to, may be.
You can see I’m not certain of how exactly to explain it, how to pin down a reason. Every sentence here is full of ‘or’s, isn’t it? I write because that’s what life is like — constantly seeking to find the path between the possibilities, making choices — big ones, small ones; some that seem inconsequential, easily-made, but full of ramifications in time to come; some that are mulled over, considered, made with so much care, and in the end, maybe years later, I can look back and say “So what?”
But back to the reader. Here’s how I came to understand that when I write, if I send my writing out into the world, it’s no longer mine. It belongs then to whomever might chance to read it. It’s theirs to make of it what sense they will. I have no control over that at all, and maybe no right to expect it. That’s the deal.
I’m primarily a poet. I say that because, in all that I’ve written (far more prose than poetry), only my poetry has been published, some in journals and also in my two collections. Except for a long-defunct blog, there’s been no prose published.
I was once generously granted a scholarship to attend a week-long poetry summer-school. What a gift! Each day a well-known poet would usher a small group through their thoughts and techniques in fairly intense workshops. Once during the week, each student had a private one-to-one critique session with a faculty member, reviewing a selection of our work. My session, with a professor from a California University, left me travelling home that evening with one thought in my mind — My poetry is verbal wallpaper. Boring, bland, unexciting. I should give up and try my hand at country songs, or greeting card verses. The feedback had not been in those words, but I was told there was an absence of Me in my work. The poems didn’t have much heart or soul to them. Oh, I thought, I really didn’t know that.
It took good friends and a nurturing writing group long months to help restore some of my confidence, but still, there was an easily-bruised sore spot left behind, still tender to the touch a year later, when I found myself face-to-face again with the same poet. What to say? She remembered me, and said “I still have one of your poems on my refrigerator!” I commiserated, saying that I too have piles of paper around my kitchen that I never quite manage to tidy up. “Oh no!” she reassured me, “It’s not in a pile. It’s taped to the refrigerator door. The more I see it and read it, the more I love it. It’s not many student’s work will last a whole year with me.” I was struck dumb, and decided there was no point in telling her that I wished I’d known that all during the previous year, when her dismissive words had rung in my ear for so long.
Takeaway? We never know. Initial reactions may not last (whether positive or negative). We never know, when our words go out into the world what or where they may touch some nerve, or some tender place in a reader, and become the kind of talisman that one attaches to their fridge.
I’ve had messages in the past years from readers who tell me they’ve chosen to use one of my poems in a memorial service, or as a starting point for a workshop. One poem seems to have become a standard offering at some Writing for Wellbeing workshops. Unknown to me, it was referenced in a textbook for students of poetry therapy. Every time I hear that a poem has been read, used or remembered, that’s worth more to me than any payment you could imagine. That’s why I write… to know that something I’ve said has meant something to somebody out there — somewhere, anywhere.
