Poetry Friday: For The Young Who Want To

I sent it to her on December 14th and relished the holidays like a college student after final exams. But low in my mind buzzed a swarm of short sentences; small, stinging flies that needed to be smacked time after time: "It stinks. It's no good. It's a pile of —"

Yesterday was report card day. Her email winged into my box, making my pulse quicken like it did in eighth grade when that Irish redhead walked to my desk for the first time. "So not to keep you in suspense," she wrote. "I like it!"

I shouted and squeezed the nearest son, the one studying the Middle Ages. He nodded and smiled and focused on his flash cards; he's been through this before.

I've written several books now, and still the process is no less agonizing. So to any writers and the writer wannabes visiting the Fire Escape on this cold and rainy Massachusetts Poetry Friday, I give you Marge Piercy's poem about true talent:

For the young who want to
BY MARGE PIERCY

Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting ...

Read the rest here.