‘Don’t Let Me Cross Over love’s Cheating Line ‘ - Secret-Poet Digs Heels in at Going Public’

(On the Spit (Vietnam,06))

(The Key to Happiness...(Farm, Spring 08))

‘Don’t let me cross-over love’s cheating line…’ is a song that I used to love singing for visitors and friends when I was at that lovely innocent age before self-consciousness sets in…obviously, I wasn’t too aware of the subject matter of the song, must have been the melody that grabbed me or maybe it was one that was plonked in front of me and I was told to have a go at it….anyway, I really was into singing as a kid and had a whole repertoire that I sang for folk on demand. I have memories of having a used light-bulb as a microphone and going about a daily sort of business singing to trees and hay stacks and sitting on the tractor with my dad, singing my heart out while he ploughed the fields…nostalgia – better stop now ; )…

All of these memories have sprung from the fact that before long I’m going to have to go public with my poetry…I mean, ‘me with the poetry’ as opposed to the poetry on its own sweet-ownsome in some magazine or anthology – that type of going public, I’ve been dealing with – the other, where I have to ‘tag along‘with the poetry….well, maybe that’s where the digging of the heels comes into it…

Strictly Writing have a great post about Going Public (Feb. 6th). This is exactly where I find myself at now. Having a book published seemed like a brilliant idea at the time and still does but it is just now that the implications of this are sinking in….don’t get me wrong I am a ‘Get-up’ and a ‘Go-for-it’ type of person and won’t let the side down but I fear the crossing over from private-poet, nay, even secret-poet, to poet with readings lined up is quite a hefty cross-over. For starters, I haven’t written anything in ages, maybe three months or so, every time an idea pops into my head, it is swiftly sent hopping by a new sort of public-poet that is saying stuff like – get the proofs done, get in front of the mirror and get the practising in, get the begging letters out for ‘puffs’ and ‘reviews’, get the book out and read it again and again and again – what were you on about there? will that poem be fitting or not for an airing?, what 5 words would you use to describe your work to get the man/woman on the street to give you a hearing, what were you thinking of there? ...Ad infinitum...

Is this just some type of growing-pang? Have others had ‘cross-over’ experiences and if so, how do you keep your secret-poet part from not wanting to really clobber the public-poet part who keeps harping on about blurbs and stuff? Are the two reconcilable or am I destined to keep with the split and the consequences?...: )