I decided that I no longer care much for some of the poems I've published - some in print mags, some in webzines - that have ended up on the web and were linked to from the right-hand column on this blog.
So I've just deleted those particular links. The poems are still out there, of course, but I can now at least pretend to myself that they're not.
Yes, I know how that feels. Luckily most of the poems I feel that way about were published before there was an internet. I'm actually working on a blog about this at the moment where I look back at some poems I was so chuffed with myself over and realise that they only worked because half of the poems were still in my head; that's why I thought they were so brilliant. Now I've forgotten all of that all that's left is what made it to the page and, with a lot of them, it's not quite enough.
ReplyDeleteWoah! I thought it was just me... Jim makes a good point about poems needing to be stayed long enough to get the whole thing out on the page.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about Carson reading (further back, just catching up). I heard him read at the launch of the Yellow Nib in Belfast last autumn. We have him for a module in Translation later on this term!
Jim, Barbara - yes that's an interesting point, one I hadn't considered before.
ReplyDeleteFor me, it's just that certain types of poem I was writing a year or so ago don't satisfy me any more. I still write rubbish of course, and sometimes I have fun doing so, but these ones stay well away from my submission pile these days. Consequently, my submission pile is quite small.