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| Art in the interview by Denise Nestor--go see and read! |
I have finished work on two poetry contests and am moving on to make a change in a novel that I thought was finished long ago (changed my mind!); pressure from many deadlines having slackened a little, early this morning I rambled about the net for half an hour. And in my wanderings, I found something to recommend.
I suggest that you leap over to Vice and read the interview between Marilynne Robinson and one of her Iowa students, Thessaly LaForce (with a name like that, I'm surprised Thessaly didn't feel compelled to become a poet.)
Here's a snip to entice:
...Something that I sometimes say, and even sometimes believe, is that there has been a loss of the cult of genius. When I was younger, I remember going around totally deluded by the idea that other people might, in fact, be geniuses or at least be able to express this in any intelligible fashion. The idea that you might do something radically brilliant—that assumption is very empowering and it has given the world a lot of really interesting things to look at. It’s a side effect of the cult of normality—the idea that it would be preposterous and perhaps undesirable to single yourself out in that way. I think that’s why a lot of stuff that basically amounts to breaking china is seen as being creative when, in fact, it’s as subservient to prevailing norms as anything else is, as obedience to them would be.
There is that whole Malcolm Gladwell thing—if you spend 10,000 hours on something, you’ll be good at it. Or good enough.
The “good-enough” standard is not very desirable.
The “good-enough” standard is not very desirable.
