Every single one, that’s what they say
They may well fall short from time to time, but if you keep on writing, I’m fairly sure that one way or other your writing will manage to make hay
After all, Heaney has a hundred and one poems nowhere near lucky enough to find their way from his squat pen to up inside of our heads
It far too easy for a ‘great’ poem to fall upon deaf ears, suddenly find itself lying in an all too early bed, unable to make its reader cry joyous tears
What is it that takes that poem over the line, sublime writing sometimes not quite enough
Tough luck, you need to keep on going ’til one such imagination gets ignited and those words, once untouched, begin to flow
You’re playing with a billion and one different personalities, so don’t feel hard done by when your particular rhyme fails to catch the eye
Be patient, oh so patient, be prepared to give it some time
‘Til a once ‘average poem’ starts to read sublime
What one person loves another will most probably hate, as a result you love of that poem all too dangerously opening itself up to the possibility of dissipation
It’s all about anticipation, anticipating the next reader, what feeds one won’t necessarily feed another
And if you find that it’s only your mother, you father telling you how good they are then you need to go further afield, to a place where people are far more inclined not to immediately yield to your work
Bias can be an almighty bitch because even if they say that they’re not, they are, simply because you are the one person they love unconditionally, so if you hand them a poem of the worst kind you will still find them looking for goodness in it
That’s not what you want, that is, put plain and simply, the pits
This is it, you need to feed your own curiosity by giving it to those who you expect will like it the least
I don’t know, perhaps even as much as a local priest, or one of your friends who’s massively unimpressed by the thought of poetry writing alone