A Poem for a Thursday #128

Marge Piercy is an American activist, novelist, and poet. She has written almost 20 novels and close to 20 volumes of poetry. Her writing addresses class, feminism, social, and environmental issues. Piercy and her husband, Ira Wood, run Leapfrog Press. This poem uses the word “phlogiston.” I had to look it up. Phlogiston theory refers to the belief by 18-century chemist that all combustible bodies contain an element called phlogiston that is released during combustion. This theory led to experiments that ultimately helped scientists to discover oxygen.

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.

Work is what you have done
after the play is produced
and the audience claps.
Before that friends keep asking
 when you are planning to go 
out and get a job.

Genius is what they know you
had after the third volume
of remarkable poems. Earlier
they accuse you of withdrawing,
ask why you don't have a baby,
call you a bum.

The reason people want M.F.A.'s,
take workshops with fancy names
when all you can really
learn is a few techniques,
typing instructions and some-
body else's mannerisms

is that every artist lacks
a license to hang on the wall
like your optician, your vet
proving you may be a clumsy sadist
whose fillings fall into the stew
but you're certified a dentist.

The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to 
like it better than being loved.

For The Young Who Want To
Marge Piercy 

Visit Brona’s Books to read another poem.