“If it turns out I haven’t written a great poem, fine. I really hope that I’ve written something a few people will want to keep in their heads, but to obsess about more than that is just a fool’s game. I know poets in their sixties who are still obsessed with worldly fame, getting recognition for their work, being known as a great poet. It seems to me a kind of illness. I think you write the poems that God has given you to write. And in the end, I think something has to happen so that you are the judge of your own poems. What they are answering is not some huge judgment from outside you. They’re a testament to your time on earth, and to how well you’ve stood up to it. In the case of my poems, I feel confident—not about their quality, but about their necessity in my life.” – Christian Wiman, in Poets & Writers (Nov. & Dec. 2010)
Do you agree with this description of the poet’s vocation, to write the poems God has given us? How does audience come into play with poetry, or the arts in general? Just some questions I’ve been thinking about lately.