I wind up giving almost all my art away; drawings, poems, photographs (if you would be kind enough to allow me the belief that my pictures are in someway artistic). I'm able to do this for two reasons, one, I like not buying things for people and two, once I'm done with something, for better or worse, I'm pretty much done. I've been thinking about this lately because for the last week I've been writing and posting poems on my friend, Aaron McNally's facebook wall, and that is the sole reason they exist...as a method of redefining the purposes of that space. The poems themselves are statements, but their very being is a statement unto itself...
Anyway, this got me thinking about how seriously a lot of poets take themselves and their work, treating it like some kind of commodity that ultimately belongs in a type of showcase (be that book or journal). This is a bag of worms and I know it, but since nobody in America, well, 8% of America, reads poetry on a regular basis, who gives a shit. Odds are, more people will read those posted poems than will ever read a book I might someday have. What's the point then in acting like our work deserves some kind of higher honor than being self-published on facebook.
This idea is a few days late, but perhaps to keep the spirit of NaPoMo going, make all your facebook/blogging/e-mail dealings poetic, take advantage of the character limitations, space limitations, self-importance limitations. Write poems just for that person, just for that moment. You might be surprised.