Confessions of a Writer

I once heard David Sedaris say

                No one should presume to call himself a writer.

That’s a title others have to give you.

                No one’s ever called me a writer.

I mean no one with the authority to make the call.

Fuck it. I write. I’m a writer.

It’s not a question of whether I’m good at it.

                I’ve also heard many times from many writers

This: be honest.

They always say it as though that’s all good writing is.

Just root out the truth of what you see

                Or think or feel—and word it. The rest is learnable

Technique. Fuck that too.

Let’s be honest. No one knows what combination

Of native verbal talent and learning

And luck and observational and emotional skill

Goes into making someone a writer.

                Or some writer “successful.”

You read this stuff and it sounds just like

                Famous X is having a beer-soaked conversation

With the mirror. And losing it.

                But he’s successful.

Or this other one saying shit so convoluted you swear

                He himself could not have understood it.

And then there’s the dubious philosophy or

                The jingling noises of consonants wracking

Vowels. I don’t get it.

                That’s my first confession.

My second is that I’ve never read Dante

                Though I’ve always meant to.

Or Finnegan’s Wake, which I doubt would repay

                The effort, though I hate the inescapable

Economic metaphor. I doubt my emotions

                Validate anything. And I don’t believe

The intellect is up to the task of figuring out

                The universe. And saying that questions

Are more important than answers

                Is just like Edward Taylor praising God

For murdering his children. And if there were no God

                And all values were contestable

And if life were a game

                Whose stakes are actual death,

And worthless misery, and joy that is only joy

                Because it is blind—well then

That would mean the world would be

                Pretty much like it is.

A world in which Donald Trump

                Could be president.