audience

So one of the batches of poems I sent out not long ago got a No. Pooh. Up came that apologetic feeling. Naturally they didn't accept any of these poems, these weren't my best poems, these were poems I've sent around before and nobody else has wanted them therefore they must really not be worthwhile, if I'd had any respect for this ezine I would have sent more recent better work. Hmph. When I choose poems to send out I reread each one and if I don't like the dern thing I don't send it out! Sure, I see flaws in my poems. I see flaws in all my poems at one time or another. Sometimes I even revise them post-publication. But I sent this ezine good poems so I don't have anything to feel weird about. They didn't like them or didn't like them enough or didn't feel like the poems fit with their idea of their ezine or whatever. The poems hit or they don't.

Every so often I see talk about audience. Do you write for an audience? Do you picture a reader as you write?

I do and I don't. When I'm working on a poem I'm seeing an object. If you're making a thing and you see that it wants to stand up on its own you have to adjust its base and its balance until it can do that. Regardless of whether anybody ever looks at it. That's pretty much where I am. I'd be happy to paint the thing the bright colors that would lead to more sales if ... if I were making things people pay for. Or so I imagine.