Why am I on Substack?

A little essay on figuring out what my motivation is and if you can relate?

Photo by Eric Han on Unsplash

Dear Friends,

I wanted to take the opportunity to introduce myself and why I’ve joined Substack.

In my forties I became interested in reading poetry. Then, when I decided to leave work by eeking out my small inheritance, I thought it was time to flex the right hemisphere of my brain and discover a creative outlet. After many attempts at various creative activities, my spark was finally lit in a wonderful creative writing class where reading and writing poetry has developed into a bit of an obsession.

Having listened to published guest speakers, who have recommended entering competitions, I seem to have found myself on a dark path, overgrown with brambles that tug, scratch and pierce my skin (sorry, I’ve gone all poetic on you). It’s a path that ends in praise, accolades, publication, reading out loud to audiences and (god forbid) marketing. Yuk and aargh! How, as creatives, do you square this circle?

I received a guest pass to do the online BBC Maestro courses, so I obviously signed up to the one led by Carol Anne Duffy. She says that ‘a poem needs to find a reader in order to be alive.’ Yes! I shouted (inwardly). That’s why I’m turning myself inside out entering competitions and getting nowhere. I thought perhaps I was looking to getting my ego stroked (though I knew deep down this wasn’t really quite true). What I’m searching for is for my poems to be alive in the world, not dead on the page. And by that I mean that I want them to explain something about how I see the world, which is about how I value curiosity, presence, compassion, nature and spirit, and hopefully for that to make sense to someone else.

I’m thinking that, rather than being hung up on getting published and winning competitions, perhaps putting my poems out here on Substack might be a way of letting them live? (After all I’m not looking for another job.)

So here I am, trying to bring my poems alive. But now I’ve entered the world of likes, comments, followers and subscribers. Oh no, here I go again.

So I’ve recalibrated from how I’ve learnt to operate on other platforms, and I am thinking quality, not quantity. I’m not going to focus on numbers, but if I get one lovely comment then I’m achieving what I set out to do.