Dana
Gioia
For seventeen years I worked in the business
world while writing at night
and on weekends. It was, especially at first, a life of considerable
social and spiritual seclusion. The sense of isolation was heightened
by
the prevalent assumption then everywhere evident that all serious
poets
belonged in the university. For a young poet, however, loneliness
is
probably the necessary precondition to individuality. Writing
by myself
late at night with no professional pressures to publish, I found
the
time-even if it came only in tiny increments-to discover who
I was as a
poet. For nearly a decade I sent no poems to journals. I was
concerned
only with writing something that seemed good enough. My long
hours in the
office provided the community I didn't have in the arts. From
my fellow
workers, none of whom knew I was a poet, I also learned a great
many things
about the human needs and aspirations a poet must address.
Now working full-time as a writer, I miss the
camaraderie of office
life-despite its pressure and politics. Ironically, I also miss
the
secrecy of my former literary life. No more do I experience
the guilty
pleasures of being a spy in the house of commerce. I suspect,
however,
that I still write more for my old fellow workers, who will
never read my
poems, than for the literati. Or rather I write for an imaginary
reader
who combines the best features of both groups.
©Dana Gioia 2000. Used with permission
of the author.
