Postcards from the Imagination

Someone in workshop today thought my anti-capitalist poem/rant sounded whiny. What to do with that? I'm dissatisfied with the poem myself, but largely because it's not direct enough, because I let myself lapse into humor too frequently. I don't know what to do with "whiny" because I feel like it critiques a point of view rather than a style of writing. On the other hand, I don't want to dismiss it too quickly in case there's some improvement I can make that would be more compelling.

Lately, I feel like "good advice" for living is bad advice for poems--my poems at least. I'm not Mary Oliver. I'm not looking to write wisdom literature. I'm sick to death of easy answers that aim for stasis or balance. My first book is not going to be a tutorial on happiness.

I live a certain way because I don't have a husband and, given what I've been through, don't really want one. But passing on a husband means passing up a higher standard of living, time out of the house with free childcare, the division of household labors, intimacy, mutual sympathy, etc., etc.

Friday night my babysitter flaked out and forgot to return my calls, so I drove my daughter to her school dance, dashed over to the reading, read my poems, dashed back over to the school, and came home rather than joining my colleagues for drinks.

Whine.

What I mean is that independence is expensive and exhausting and I suspect it's making me a harder person than I want to be. I'm getting through my days without the anti-depressants now, but can I still go where I need to go emotionally to make good poems?

Damn, time's up again. Zzzzzzzzz.