Because I haven’t learned my lesson well enough, I started in on another 800-page book, Savage Beauty by Nancy Milford. It’s a biography of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, who was a giant figure in the Jazz Age and is much less well known today. It’s well-written¹, but I think I’m going to have stop reading it. For one thing, it’s difficult to write about charismatic figures, because the flame that drew admirers like moths doesn’t come through on the page. I can’t figure out why all these men (and women) are circling Millay, desperately in love with her, while she doesn’t return their feelings and is always on to her next conquest.

And for another, I’m poetry-illiterate. I honestly don’t understand why Millay’s poetry is considered so noteworthy. This is not to say I think it’s not—I mean, I don’t know why. I read Millay’s poetry, as reprinted in this biography, and I don’t get it. I’m quite sure I can’t tell the difference between the greatest poet in the English language and the worst hack.

I’ve always been poetry-illiterate. I’ve never written poetry, I’ve never read poetry for fun, I’ve never taken taken poetry classes (which is hilarious, given the number of creative writing classes I’ve taken in my life). Periodically someone will shove a poem under my nose and say, “Read this.” Often I find the poem nice and sometimes even intriguing. But I am not stirred to seek out more. Which is odd, given that I love writing in all its many forms.

This is a confession of fear of poetry. You know: poetry is too hard to understand, let alone create, or it requires too great a purely artistic streak. And this is the hardest to actually say aloud, I harbor deep plebian suspicions that poetry is too rarefied and academic. It’s the ultimate expression of the doubts I got as I was growing up: Yes, dear, but writing isn’t a real career. I mean, writers are famous for starving, and poet just seems to scream “extremely starving artist.” Which is nonsense—there does not need to be a connection between “artistic discipline” and “money-making career,” though it’s always nice if there can be. The two concerns really are orthogonal.

I’ve often wondered my lack of poetry chops has affected my writing at all. That is, would I have a better, or at least more distinct, writing style were I a poet? Or if I allowed myself to think of myself as a poet?

_____________________
¹Well, except for one thing: the author refers to her subject at different times as “Edna,” “Vincent,” and “Millay,” and there appears to be no rhyme or reason as to which name she uses when. It’s very discombobulating.