Don't Forget: Artists need to learn from elders, not just worry about being worthy

Reminder: Poetry Night Thur 11/14 7pm

• some quick thoughts

• details/link to my poetry night — soulful and saturated poetry from elder poets who wanted to share wisdom about becoming an artist. Thur 11/14 7pm ET

“Find some beautiful art and admire it, and realize that that was created by human beings just like you, no more human, no less.” - Maya Angelou

Don’t forget, artist:

You can’t just think about yourself, worry about your skillfulness, tinker with your defects.

You need to engage with art to become an artist, not just worry about becoming one. You need to sit back and engage with art to be reminded of your goal, of your potential, to be reminded of the reason. To see that its possible to create something potent from the material of your own life, which includes your limitations. You need to see how others turn limitations into powerful narrative voices.

You’ve heard me say a thousand times: art is a technology. It makes the truth that cannot be expressed in words accessible. Poets, with their license, bend language to service a message, some universal, deeply comforting wisdom about all of us. Poets are those who intentionally leave messages, clues, understanding, on the timeless radio-signal.

If you wish to grow in your artistry, part of your responsibility is to sit down and put your ear to that radio-signal and receive the message that waits for you. You will never make it if you don’t take a break from your endless worrying and tinkering, and actually participate in this process, the pre-mordial tradition of our species, which is to help one another thru.

Said simply: you need, deserve, to sit and be nourished by art itself, the best technology we have for such a thing.

Don’t forget that as an artist you are inheritor of wisdom, not the inventor of it. It is critical that you discover your creative lineage, the artists who came before you, who answer the same call as you. Said another way, you need to regularly remind yourself that your season of simply being an admirer of someones work is over. No, you are someone’s colleague.

You also need friends.

I am hosting a virtual poetry night, Thursday August 14 7pm. the theme: being an artist. I have dozens of poems and essay selections from elder write all about the creative process. My selections are soulful and heartfelt. Come make friends, cry, or read something of your own.

Part of a regular reading group series that meets 1-2x monthly.

Zoom Link below.