Rock and Roll Poets

I've learned a new Americna term — Rock and Roll. (Or as I just saw on a very funny tv show called "The Simpsons", Rev. Lovejoy called it "Rock and/or Roll" when an organist started playing an I. Ron Butterfly song. I think it a joke of some sort. It did make chuckle, but only intutively, as I'm still learning about America humor, almost in a similar fashion as Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Does anyone get the feeling that Tom Holmes, my only American friend right now, is corrupting me?). Anyhow back to Rock and/or Roll.

I've noticed Americans use the Rock and Roll in relation to celebrityhood. "I'm wanna be a rock and roll star in this or that field." While I've heard no poet say it, I sometimes sense that American poets strive for that. I exclude professors, as they publish so as to not perish. (Is that how the saying goes?) So here's the question for the American poets — do you guys publish to gain fame? or do you publish to put beauty into the world? The former seems the case to me. Sometime this month I met a poet, I forget where as I've been drunk alot lately — you know trying to fit in (some things are universal — poets get drunk every where!). Anyhow this poet said of poems in journals, "There's a lot of good first drafts out there." I wish I could remember who said that, but I don't. Probably just some drunken shadow. But I think the shadow is right, for the most part.

Anyhow what's the urge to so quickly send poems out there? And why the urge to send to "the big journals." I've been reading about William Stafford, and he didn't seem to care where his poems were published, just as long as they were out there. His ego did not seem dependent on publishing, and less on where it was published. The story goes, as I heard it from Tom, that at SUNY Brockport's Writers Forum, he read a poem. People applauded when he was done. He then read a list of like 20 literary journals. Then he noted that all these journals passed on the poem. Then he read the name of some obscure journal, one that probably doesn't even exist anymore, and he said these guys took it. Why aren't new American poets like this? What's the obsession of being famous? What's the rush? Why care? What about just putting more poetry into the world?

I'm reminded of the most important thing poets from my land are concerned with: The most important thing when writing poetry is to lose the ego.

Here it seems to be to feed the ego.

Why the need for the Rock and Roll Stardom. It's poetry, right? It's bigger than you, and more important. Isn't that the point — to make the world better, not the ego? Do you need to be famous? Do you have to be published ... now. Do you need books ... now? Can you stare some more at your poems and books until you know they will affect someone other than yourself? Why not the perfect poem that is beyond the ego, and much smarter? "Stare and Listen", that's another saying from poets from where I come from. Get it right, then get it published.

Just some concerns and obsevations about the rush to Rock and Roll Poets. (Hint hint, Tom.)

I could be very wrong here, too. This whole place is new to me.