I SUPPOSE...
I suppose we should establish in our own minds why we write poetry. In my case I don't really know. I seldom read poetry, (simply from lack of interest) in fact I don't read very much of anything. I don't buy newspapers and I don't buy books, though I do have a substantial library.
I don't particularly care if anyone reads my poetry or not, though it is nice if they do. I certainly don't care what they think of what I write, good or bad, as I will still write poetry regardless of what anyone says.
I do appreciate the comments of friends, here where I post all of my poetry, and seldom anywhere else.
I have never submitted a poem for publication; I have never sold a poem and I have only ever once submitted a poem into a competition (Charge of the War Horse) first and last time.
My most critical critic is myself, be assured, and I alone know if what I have written achieves what it was meant to achieve.
I am a very good critic of poetry, but I do not exercise this skill, on other writer's works. Most critics are never fair, are always biased and write to promote themselves as critics rather than to promote the writers poetry on which they feed.
Apart from those in this forum, I don't know any poets and have never met any poets, and don't particularly want to.
Had I not met up with Tony and this forum all of my poetry would now be lying around in cardboard boxes, with all of my earlier stuff, before the age of computers, which still exist in exercise books, note books, scribbled on the backs of cigarette packets, on bits of brown paper, in margins of old newspapers, and even on toilet paper.
You see I cannot stop writing poetry, even though I don't like writing it, even though I put myself through so much torment, anxiety, and all the colours of the rainbow, I cannot stop. Sometimes I exhaust myself, sometimes I battle through terrible headaches; sometimes I cry like a baby and rage like a bull.
You see, I have so much to say but there is so little time to say it... even though it is to deaf ears... it must all be said. How could I suffer it all otherwise without going mad...?
There you have it.