This utterly breaks with the whiskey river Fridays tradition here. But the most recent post there seems to demand passing around among ourselves. From whiskey river:
I had hardly begun to read
I asked how can you ever be sure
that what you write is really
any good at all and he said you can’tyou can’t you can never be sure
you die without knowing
whether anything you wrote was any good
if you have to be sure don’t write
(W. S. Merwin)
For what it’s worth, the above are the closing stanzas of his “Berryman,” which you can read in full here, courtesy of The Writer’s Almanac.
marta says
I don’t have to be sure, but still…
Sherri says
Wise advice. Lucky for me, I’ve learned to be comfortable with my assumed mediocrity.
John says
marta: Well, there you go!
Of course, I say that I, too, don’t need to be sure; but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to hear somebody say it anyway. :)
Sherri: Now, now. When you enter the gates here, you promise to check your mediocrity monster at the door. Let’s all agree that “unpublished” doesn’t mean “mediocre,” and let’s also agree to make liberal use of the word “yet.”