The "Mea Culpa" Thread

[Tzara]

Confession is good for the soul.

Supposedly, anyway. It's that kind of self-flagellating thing that we think ought to be good for us, better be good for us, 'cuz it hurts and makes us whiny and unpleasant to be around.

So why mea culpa? Catholic liturgy:

mea culpa

(MAY-uh KUL-puh, KOOL-puh) An expresssion from Catholic ritual that assigns blame to oneself: “I gave you the wrong directions to my house—mea culpa.” From Latin, meaning “my fault” or “my blame.”

From The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. 2002.​

So here's your chance, Litpoeticizers! Confess your writing sins! What do you think is bad about your writing? What is your own worst fault? (Or faults, plural. You may be bad on several fronts, as I am.)

Confess! Confess your writing sins. Note, though, that I quite frankly can't absolve you of them, being neither priest nor creative writing professor, but hey! You'll feel so much better afterwards!

Perhaps.

 

[Tzara]

Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, quia peccavi nimis cogitatione, verbo et opere.

OK. Let's start here. There is no life in my writing. No emotion. My biggest single fault, I think. There are others, of course, but that is the most egregious, I think. I can't communicate emotion. Many of you can, and do it superbly. I just can't. Pains me no end, but that isn't in me.

Why I descend to cleverness. Word games. Silliness.

Maybe I don't experience life with enough emotion to have it register. I don't know. Whatever. Doesn't matter.

My problem, not yours.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

 

[Tzara]

Oh, and lest this be an overly somber thread, let me include this:

Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is good for dandruff—it is a palliative rather than a remedy.
—Peter De Vries​

 

[pulpmanuel]

My greatest flaw as a writer is that I don't write enough.

Also, I write self-conciously

 

[Maria2394]

my worst fault (s) are not writing consistently and then worrying about what I wrote... that it isnt good enough, not polished enough, not perfect enough and that discourages me into writing even less.

okay, thar ya go, T

my confession

 

[vampiredust]

Not getting to the point. I tend to ramble a lot and meander around things that aren't important.

 

[Sara Crewe]

Sometimes I am too much in love with what I want to say and dont pay enough attention to where the poem wants to take me.

Sometimes I won't write about certain things because I feel they may hurt a certain person in my life.

It takes forever for my eyes to see the excess in my writing.



Something I am working to eliminate so it's a pseudo-sin is a reader finishing a poem and saying, "so what?"

Anyway, for these and all my other poetic sins. I am sorry.

 

[clutching_calliope]

I think that my biggest sin is waiting for the other shoe to drop. I write with the intent that someone I respect, someday is going to say, "Why are you writing? You don't belong here. YOU REALLY SUCK!" So, I write cautiously, holding my breath, never trying for the big goals because I feel like an imposter.

Amen.

 

[SpectaclesInSkirt]

Are we talking about all writing?

Because I want to be strung up for my plays at the moment. I can't finish them in a timely fashion, they're usually little more than extended stroke jobs in the first draft, but I can't even get to the first draft! Lazy, procrastinating, compartmentalizer that I am. For the love of God I need to finish a draft of this new play by the end of February, and I'm only in the first scene of act two. GOD DAMN IT. I want some fucking tea.

Specs

 

[SeattleRain]

Good idea for a thread, Tzara. Amazing some of the confessions -- seem so far off of my perception of people's writing.

When comes the pennance?

I refuse the hairshirt.

 

[champagne1982]

I've been a bad girl. I write whatever comes to my fingertips and then for good measure, sometimes, I'll pretend I've written a poem and post it on the 30/30 thread.

 

[SeattleRain]

I
am
a
lazymotherfucker

no, not lazy, just not motivated enough to get better, to get published, to put together a collection.... etc. I suppose it is ambition that I need to seek, find, create?

I am easily distracted. Mostly by love. And lust. And the temporary glow of newfound mutual admiration. That which feeds my muse also takes her into the back room and binds her hands.

I spend more time with other people's writing then I do my own. I am not sure this is a bad thing. I was just asked to write a statement for a journal and I wound up writing about other poets that were in the same issue. But it felt good to write about them. So I did it. I do what feels good rather than what might be good for me.

But these seem to be more like personality flaws than flaws with my writing.


hmmm

I also spend too much time thinking about my own fucking self and not answering the goddamn question

and I swear too much

and I write too long
and I need a shower
anyone want to join me
I promise to share the water
if you are nice

 

[SeattleRain]

I think that my biggest sin is waiting for the other shoe to drop. I write with the intent that someone I respect, someday is going to say, "Why are you writing? You don't belong here. YOU REALLY SUCK!" So, I write cautiously, holding my breath, never trying for the big goals because I feel like an imposter.

Amen.

oh my goodness I cannot believe you of all people suffer from the imposter syndrome!

we should start a support group. it might be the only group to which I feel I truely belong lol. No imposters allowed.

the imposter syndrome

I.

I run through the words
until the end of the page
maybe if I typefastenough
they will not recognize the poet
has no clothes
this poet
has no lines
it is corn on the cob again tonight
and the click flicker glow of metal on my mailbox
fake it fake it
is all I do
until the title rings true


II.

yes I vacation on this side of sentimental
corn syrup chokes
get me some water to wash it down
I swore I would never burn a ring of fire
around my town
to keep your spirit away
instead
I use this syrup
sticky sweet toxin
it tastes of faking it
it tastes of faking it
but you see right through
and walk away

 

[Sara Crewe]

Sign me up for an impostor- club membership. I cant even say the P--t word and I write 'stuff'.

 

[sandspike]

lazy

I need to read and learn more, but I'm lazy. You can depend on me for bar and beach ditties using my keywords: amber and aqua. I stayed with the light stuff because I told myself I wasn't smart enough, young ehough, or had enough time to run with the big dogs. Several days ago I came back to lit. and saw a thread
by lb about older poems. I noticed I had written some better stuff but it was usually during some contest. I know now I like the shallow lighter end of the poetry pool because I'm lazy. I don't plan on changing much.....but ...no, I don't plan on changing much.

 

[Maria2394]

iimposters? my arse

-----------------------------

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

I'm just a featherweight wanting to be heavier. As I see it my poetry is shallow and pffft! No matter how I try my poems are always trite and - well - featherweight. But I'll keep eating my wheaties.

 

[Maria2394]

To Tess-

feathers are the reasons
that birds take flight
and soar, feathers
if heavier, would commit
the bearer to solid ground,
where gravity
becomes the villain of hope.

Your poems possess
wings, they fly
into souls, into hearts
and minds, and be careful
whom you touch with your words-

they just might remember

You

 

[Sara Crewe]

ya'll just want someone to tell you that you are NOT imposters...and how many of you are published, here there and everyFRIGGing where?

It actually doesn't matter at all what someone else says or doesn't say...it's what the person's internal voice says. I wasn't looking for compliments just being honest.

 

[ShyErraticTable]

I have a terrible time hearing stressed and unstressed syllables, which is a significant problem if you're trying to write iambic pentameter. I find myself forcing the word into the stress I want to make it fit the poem.

Oh, and I worry about writing drivel, too. I think anyone who writes has periods where they feel their writing is bad. It's just that some of us, when we feel that, are correct.

 

[Maria2394]

It actually doesn't matter at all what someone else says or doesn't say...it's what the person's internal voice says. I wasn't looking for compliments just being honest.

I didnt mean it like that. I apologize. But Sara, you dont have to look for them, they shoudl be falling around you like the sweetest January snow...

ps, I know about that internal voice. One of the poets I most admire here tries to reassure me, but my own voice says, ya ya ya, TRM is more than a genius, but you, Maria? you suck...

 

[Sara Crewe]

I didn't mean it like that. I apologize. But Sara, you don't have to look for them, they should be falling around you like the sweetest January snow...

ps, I know about that internal voice. One of the poets I most admire here tries to reassure me, but my own voice says, ya ya ya, TRM is more than a genius, but you, Maria? you suck...

Don't worry 'bout it, Maria! I know you well enough to know you meant no harm. My point, I guess was that compliments and outward accomplishments only feel good for a very short time so while they are nice, they fade fast if they don't get echoed on the inside and so I don't really seek them out.

It's part of who I am to always think I could have done better...but of course the danger of that kind of thinking is that it slides into "I'm not good enough," very easily. You could make me the poet laureate tomorrow and I would still look at my writing and scrunch up my nose. Of course, I write things I love too but nobody asked me about my poems that I like a lot or the things I think I do well. (which I think is a very good thing 'cause nobody needs a "Sara is a pompous ass' thread.

You know what they say, "What doesn't kill us, makes us neurotic," err wait I guess it's just me that says that.

 

[DeepAsleep]

I don't write often enough, anymore. I don't know enough about the mechanics of poetry. I get lazy with my editing.

I fear nothing but writing a bad poem.

So, sometimes, I just don't write one, at all.

eeeeee......

~R

 

[FifthFlower]

My bad. Mea culpa. I suck.

OK. The first two I get, but what's wrong with sucking?

 

[SeattleRain]

I am much better at writing sexy poems when not having sexy sex

no I dont mean in the process, just in the temporal vicinity.