Am I An Artist? | 4.12.21
They call it Imposter Syndrome, but I think there’s gotta be another name for another variation on this. I think sometimes we don’t doubt ourselves, as much as we just forget to think of ourselves, at all. I am guilty of this, often, and I don’t know whether it is unique to me, to my place on the Autism Spectrum, or if it’s a trait universally shared and equally pondered about. I forget to think of myself, I don’t really look into the mirror, I don’t read my own work after it has left my brainpan and found its way onto the page, and as such, I don’t really know where I fall or qualify on the great grand scale of Artistry. Critically, I know I’m considered a bit of a joke, an “InstaPoet” labeled by those highfalutin smartiepants that have fancy degrees and use Triple Bonus Scrabble words in their everyday vernacular, (see that one there fancy folks, vernacular!) and I know that I’m fine with that, but I do wonder from all of you who are not these people: Am I an artist? Is the art I make worthy of being called it?
I told my brother-from-another-mother Steven the other day, that I often forget my words ever land somewhere, that they have a life after I’ve written them, and I stand by this. I have always considered them like threads in prayer flags, designed to break off, to fly away, I just forget that they plant themselves in other people. Invent me a new term, as Imposter Syndrome isn’t always it. This is something else…taking suggestions now.
Is the art I make
worthy of being called it?
Am I an artist?
Haiku on Life by Tyler Knott Gregson
Song of the Day
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You ARE an artist....in fact, I made your book Illumination part of my lesson today for National Poetry Month....and shared with my students how you are one of the modern poets that I follow....and challenged them to find a poet to follow in their own social media lives, because poetry is art and is always being created.
What is a writer, but one who writes? The word poetry derives from the Greek for "to create" so you're most certainly a poet if you're creating something new out of words that are just lying in wait to be expressed. And you've published your art in multiple ways for the consumption and appreciation of anyone....and that's a gift of art to the world.
You're no imposter.... you're as authentic as they come and I appreciate you and celebrate what you make.
You are absolutely an artist.