Organizing Poetry, Like Herding House Finches

If there were one certain method for keeping track of the poems I write, I would be following it by now, but after 40 years of writing poems, I still do it the stupid way: first, I write poems in my journal; eventually, sometimes as long as three or four years later, I type them into the computer and put them in a Chronological File; then, when I get around to it, I re-organize the poems into thematic folders on the computer and tackle revision. By then, of course, I've written many more new poems, and my new babies often interest me more.

My lack of enthusiasm for the pursuit of publication has been to my detriment as regards "earning" a reputation as a respectable poet or building up publications that could lead to teaching assignments or whatever other few rewards there are for doing this work. We don't live in a culture that places value on poetry--and some poets go so far as to complain that just too many people are writing and publishing poetry, a problem that seems so minuscule compared to the problem that poetry just doesn't count for much, whether written by the greatly accomplished or the little-known.

I've never had a problem writing poems, except during one fallow period following the death of a dear friend when I couldn't find the words to express my grief--it was the first meaningful death I had known up close and personal. But, I'm a failure at "getting my work out there." I know real "go-getters" in the poetry scene, people who have only been writing a few years who are quite pro-active about publishing, and have a tolerance for sending out pieces and getting rejections, and then sending them out again, that I truly envy. It's just not what I'm good at.

I'm trying to change this, and so the first task is getting the damn things into some kind of workable order, selecting a few to send out, and then matching them to publications and contests where they stand a bit of a chance of being published. Why bother, I sometimes wonder, when I'd much rather focus on the act of expression that gives me so much pleasure and meaning in the writing of new work. Why bother attempting to publish?