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How to be successful…enough

As I was cleaning my teeth this morning for some reason I remembered a boy called Andrew* at primary school who was always either 1st or 2nd in class rankings (oh yes we had those). For any subject: maths, English etc. I remember because it was me who was 2nd when he was first and vice versa. I doubt he even noticed my existence at the time, let alone remembers me now; at age 10 he had an air of confidence and single-mindedness whereas I could only worry about how to do well at everything and be liked at the same time. Thinking back on that, It was a horrible pressure to put myself under, and I think there’s no doubt it came from inside me – there were no familial expectations or teachers building up my hopes. But the idea of the need to constantly compete was always big in my mind.

Then I went to a grammar school full of girls like me and many much cleverer. And something happened. I settled into the comfortable upper-second. I didn’t have the drive or the application to be a high flyer. I wasn’t super-talented, just talented enough (and hard working enough) to keep the teachers happy, and confident enough to not take the odd poor mark or result to heart.

At university it was the same, and guess what? I finished with a 2:1 (or upper second class degree as it used to be known I think).

A bit of history/explanation here for anyone who graduated in the last 10 or 15 years: a 2:1 probably sounds a bit slack. But it used to be the case that British universities awarded degrees based on a percentage rather than an absolute. In other words, around 5 – 8% of degrees awarded were 1st class, and 5- 8% were 3rd. The vast majority were second class, divided into two equal groups – upper and lower. If you happened to graduate in a year with a large number of academic hot shots, you might miss out on the 1st. Another year you’d be in.

I’m not saying I feel any bitterness about my 2:1, quite the opposite in fact (!) But just look at this idea in diagram form (bear with me!)

diagram

Does this look at all like anything to you? Perhaps a teeny bit like all those ‘open book’ logos we see on book club websites or whatever?

Ok I know it’s a bit of a leap, but with this thought I suddenly realised the problem with striving for/hoping for some sort of big breakthrough in the poetry world is that you’re trying to enter a tiny, tiny sector.

Now look at the huge central area, the massive open double-page spread – that’s where most of us sit. We hope we’re in the right hand section, the recto page. Anyone who sells print advertising knows that an ad placed on the right hand page is noticed first. It’s the place to be. Premium. It costs more. The left hand page is less good. Verso. The sinister side. The casual reader probably skims over it. The RECTO side is preferable, and what’s more, it’s a big target, which makes it relatively do-able. The comfortable upper-second embraces a very wide range of poetic ability and success.

That tiny sector on the right is the Prize. It’s where the big names are: poets who publish with the big houses, who win the Eliots and the Forwards, who have long successful careers in poetry publishing. But I know for a fact that plenty of poets who you might think are here, either don’t consider themselves to be, or don’t feel they deserve to be, or who constantly feel one poem away from slipping into the upper-second.

So there we are (well, I am, and maybe you are too) in the ‘upper-second’ sector of the poetry world. There’s plenty of fluidity of course.

Scenario one: You get an email from The Rialto accepting two of your poems, or you win mid-range poetry competition, or your book is reviewed in the Guardian… HUZZAH, move up to position A on the diagram. You’re nearly there! Look how close it is to 1st!

Scenario 2: you haven’t written anything you’re happy with in months. The last six responses from magazines have been rejections. It’s been years since that competition success/big magazine acceptance/wildly successful reading you did. Go directly to position B and stay there until you pull your socks up. That Lower 2nd is beckoning you, and the bright young things are pushing in!

So that, my poet friends, is the game of snakes and ladders that we’re all playing, not necessarily knowingly, not necessarily willingly, in fact you might be thinking it’s a load of bullshit.

But for some reason I take comfort in this analogy. The open book, the invitation to read and write, and look! – the middle section is the most prominent, the most visible. That RECTO page is mighty big, with room for us all to be a little easier on ourselves I think, still with plenty of scope for ambition, some healthy competition … and the chance to be successful enough.

 

 

*not his real name, by the way. Apparently he went on to make a fortune with Lehman Brothers and raised a family on a twenty acre estate in Kent.

Published inAngstBlogMotivationWriting

6 Comments

  1. I thought you said snakes and adders in there somewhere in there but maybe not!
    Very glad was not subject to all that. First O.level as single parent at 30 . B.A with OU and MSc one day a week at Birkbeck while tutor in adult lecturer the other four, so never experienced that heirichy. First published hed poem in Sunday Times Supplement at 40 and paid! Poems on Radio 4 You and Yours etc. Lucky moi

    • Robin Houghton Robin Houghton

      Great to hear from you, Ann! I was just wondering how you were and then your comment popped up. Thanks for reading and contributing, I hope you are well. Keep on with your lovely blog. Rx

  2. Robin, if you strive academically and at the same time want to be popular, aren’t you a nerdwell? My granddaughter, now 15, is going through these psychically and hormonally challenging teen years. Shudder. If we had it to do all over again, would we? Who would be so brave or foolish? At the far end of this tunnel, of course, most of us, like you, seem to have turned out all right.

    • Robin Houghton Robin Houghton

      Hi Greg, I’ve never heard of the term nerdwell, but I get the picture! I for one would not like to go through all that again, although my memories are good. Maybe I’ve sensibly blocked out the bad stuff. Many thanks for commenting. R

  3. Hi Robin
    It seems to me , in my experience of about 13 years of submitting poetry to the small press mags that it’s not enough to just write good poems you have to know people and all my significant advances have been because someone liked my work and gave me a foot up in terms of publication, reviews etc. There also seems to be a kind of VIP lounge in the poetry biosphere, reserved for the poets who win posh prizes or are published with the top presses and statistically it’s almost impossible to gain access. There’s no reception commitee waiting for my collections when they’re published and so far, no support from my editors either.

    • I’m afraid you are right, but we poets who labor in obscurity might be satisfied with the notion that many of the perks of fame and fortune, including incoming rocket attacks by the capitalist powers that be, largely leave us alone. (I am watching news of the Hamas-Israel war, which is disturbing enough, and being entertained, between clips, by relentless advertisements for things I do not need.)

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Robin Houghton 2021