Misperception

Please claim your prize.
Pay no attention to the fact you must step backward to receive it.
That is the time lag between true creativity and recognition.
You know those award givers are experts and university professors…
They have to wait to recognize something new.
They have to read about it.
They have to study it.
They have to write a paper about it.
Their paper puts the artist second.
They must receive the accolades for discovering your work.
In the award show they are your presenter.
They explain your work to the audience.
Their interpretation is in error.
They won’t let you correct them.
They are the expert.
You are an unlettered artist and do not know yourself.
Or truly understand what it is you created.

Remember.
Your award is about recognizing their brilliance finding you.

Remember.
You are a brand new animal being yourself.
They are the intrepid explorers announcing you to the world.

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copyright © 2019 Kenneth P. Gurney

postscript

It is true I have won a couple small poetry competitions. Local awards. Nothing with presentation shows and auditoriums full of intellectuals.

Once I sat through a university professor explaining my poem to his students. I pointed out I disagreed with his interpretation. He told me I was wrong. That I did not understand my creation. What I really did not understand was his arrogance. Oh well.

I remember noticing slam poetry started to gain credibility in the academic world once papers and books started to be published about slam poetry.

These three experiences fused to get this poem going. The title Misperception is about my poem stating itself as if it was fact. I do believe the academic world is a bit behind at recognizing society’s organic cultural growth. Academics do not live at the overlapping center of all the thousands of cultures that form the USA, so it is right that there is a time lag from emergence to documentation.

I do not believe that awards and academics behave as this poem suggests. So this is a fancy in that respect. It pokes fun at me for thinking so. It is important to laugh at oneself from time to time. Humans! We are absurdly lovable in our contradictions.

Ah. The sun comes up. The longest night of 2019 ends. I think New Years should be moved to the Winter Solstice. Who picked January One anyways? It was probably one of those early calendar drift problems from when they did not account for leap year.

Love & Light. Tree & Leaf.

Kenneth