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8 December 2004. At his blog, Geof Huth recently brought up the truism that visual poets tend to compose almost exclusively for other visual poets, "just as poets create poetry for poets." He then went on to wonder "how viable any art is that does not reach outside the borders of its practitioners, any art that cannot convince some noticeable number of non-practitioners to join the numbers of its enthusiasts. What is the value of an art that exists just for its creators? If a visual poet creates a poem and no-one else sees it, does it exist?"
A good argument could be made, I think, for the value of making a poem or any other complex cultural work that no one appreciates but you. I would much rather make such a poem than make one everyone loves but me, in fact. I think I have some kind of inborn drive to do the best that I possibly can with my brain (however unlikely that might seem to others). To do my best ultimately, at something of consequence, that is, not necessarily in everything I do.
But I certainly my chief goal is to compose works that I think first-rate and many others do, too. My chief problem (and that of others in visual poetry like Geof), I feel, is making what I'm doing known to the few who would, I'm sure, appreciate it if they knew about it. Who are they? They aren't just fellow practitioners, but the kind of people who first became fans of abstract-expressionism, or impressionism, or cubism, etc. Our great problem as poets is that a handful of admirers can't help us financially (or statooznikally) the way a handful of admirers can help a painter--if one of them buys a few of his paintings (and getting substantial amounts of money for what one does is the basis of statooznikal success as well as materially pleasant). Hence, my number one suggestion for publicly advancing one's work as a visual poet is to pretend to be a painter and aim for exhibitions rather than publications.
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