Misfit Salon Contest!

There are going to be 2 contests for Amazon gift certificates and more importantly included in the Misfit Magazine. One contest will be a micro fiction and the other poetry. The theme: Love. All details are at the Misfit Salon. Ah, if only I could write well! No problem, I'll be enjoying the fruits of everyone's labor.

Now, I love the inclusion of poetry in the contest. It reminds me of some of my favorite pieces. In fact, one of my favorite poets is Marge Piercy. A good friend sent The Moon Is Always Female to me when she studied it in school. I was a fan right after that. I'll include one of my favorite poems from this book.

For the young who want to

Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting.

Work is what you have done
after the play is produced
and the audience claps.
Before that friends keep asking
when you are planning to go
out and get a job.

Genius is what they know you
had after the third volume
of remarkable poems. Earlier
they accuse you of withdrawing,
ask why you don't have a baby,
call you a bum.

The reason people want M.F.A.'s,
take workshops with fancy names
when all you can really
learn is a few techniques,
typing instructions and some-
body else's mannerisms

is that every artist lacks
a license to hang on the wall
like your optician, your vet
proving you may be a clumsy sadist
whose fillings fall into the stew
but you're certified a dentist.

The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.


So, what do you think? Do you have a favorite poem?