You Don't know What You Don't Know

I feel as though writing poetry has been shanghai'd by people who can't write having their revenge against those who can, much in the same way politics has been taken over by people who can't think, having their revenge against people who can. (I don't really think that, but it makes a good polemic for what follows.) I think writing is intuitive, but it comes with a lot of practice and hopefully a good editor.  I know I have written a lot of bad stuff and continue to write a lot of bad stuff, but I've done it so much that I can tell when I've hit my standard at least, so that I am prepared to turn it over to someone else's set of critical eye, because, and this last point is essential, there will always be things I cannot see, good and bad.  The worst attribute for a writer is a kind of American Idol defensive righteousness about one's one work.  One needs a thick skin, of course, and some detachment from the success or failure show, but there is nothing sadder and more obnoxious than the neophyte convinced of his own posterity.  (I should know, having been that guy.)  Nothing is harder and more uncertain than good writing.