Finding oneself represented online has a sobering effect on the poet. Or, at least, that is how I feel about this nefarious thing called fame. Our landscapes are internal to us. What we produce, these little chaffish flecks of existence, drift away, published and republished in anthology, cherished by some, abhorred by others. It never occurs to the writer that they may affect a human soul a thousand miles or even a lifetime away. One thinks of posterity but does any artist consider the product of his existence beyond the yearly stipend from publisher or agent? What would Nietzsche have felt if he had witnessed the horrors of a world war?
I don’t expect wars to be fought over me, though, in my darkest hours, like any writer, to be immortalised in a bloodbath seems like a pleasing alternative to the assumed obscurity. So, I arrive at this blog, created in my name by others, adorned with my face, striated by my words, and I feel an outsider in my own world. I have not reached an age – nor may I ever – when having people stare at me feels anything like normality. Instead I recollect the moments in my life of which I am most ashamed. It is not unlike standing before an audience, to lecture or to recite, when I imagine that eyes see into the very depths of my soul and are repelled by what they see.
What do you see? I make no great claims for my amorality. I’ll leave that for others to catalogue, as I am sure they will. Instead, I will simply say, of my occasional immorality, my intentions were never spiteful. As a poet, I believe I have made it my theme to simply portray life in its cruellest agonies of circumstance, rarely of our making, usually of our suffering, etching away at an atomic on the substance of our soul.
[UPDATE: Sat. 18th July, 18:19. Grayson emailed me this note late Friday and in my rush to post it, I forgot to thank him for the interest he's showing in our blog and the wider blogging community. When I helped him to set up an account, I hardly expected him to use it and I'm encouraging him to respond via comments here as I've seen him do on other blogs.]
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