Dedicated to the one I workshop with

"Woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform with nonconformity." - Eric Hoffer

Bloody hell. Just when I was feeling sort of ok about myself and my poetry career or temporary lack of it, an seemingly innocent brown envelope gets me all antsy again.

I was using the tail end of my bank holiday weekend to attend to my editorial duties for the Frogmore Papers, aka going through submissions with my most ruthless hat on. One of the submissions was a small selection from a forthcoming collection by a local poet, of poems dedicated to other local poets. Most of the dedicatees were people I knew slightly from workshops or, occasionally, readings where we'd shared a bill, and all of them are now doing much better than me, bringing out their own collections and running their own workshops instead of attending them. It made me realise how invisible I've been on the Brighton 'scene' for the past year or so, how my own social laziness has apparently damaged my chances of getting anywhere with my poetry just as much as any drop in the quantity or quality of my actual writing.

And yet I still want to believe that you can be a poet without having to hang out with other poets all the time. If I sometimes choose sitting at home with my husband watching West Wing DVDs over attending a reading on the other side of town, am I less of a writer? I fear the answer may be yes. While I am still friendly with a few local poets, the comparatively moribund condition of my 'career' reflects the fact that for some time I haven't bothered to show my face at the sort of events where poets circulate and network and, presumably, agree to publish each other and dedicate poems to each other. Partly I'm envious of this Brighton clique - who *doesn't* want to be in the gang, after all? - but partly I find it unappealing and fake. My friends are my friends for all sorts of reasons, but the reasons never include their poetic activities. I ended my involvement with Lewes Live Literature mostly because of the unbearable schmoozing that was so necessary and at which I was so inept. But will I ever get anywhere if I don't accept that a bit of 'who you know', a bit of networking even if it's disguised as getting pissed at a poetry event, is part of the deal?