How Poetry is Like the Hunger Games

(And since you asked, yes, this post was inspired by a dream in which I was in a Survivor/Hunger Games-esque game show, in which I turned earnestly to my love interest and said “I will do what it takes to survive.”)

A few posts ago I talked about lessons we can learn as writers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Today I’m going to talk a little bit about how the poetry world is like the Hunger Games.

1. The most important thing you can do is survive. (And by that I mean, keep writing.) In The Hunger Games, Katniss wasn’t the strongest, the smartest, or the best fighter. She won the game by being likable enough, by being strong enough, by being persistent and wily enough, by being a genuine friend to some of the people in the game…and some luck as well. The same is true in poetry. You do not have to be the best. Most people in the “game” of poetry –  including the thousands of  MFA students paying thousands of dollars to study it – will stop writing within five years. That is the reality. If you keep writing, and you keep reading, and you keep getting better and sending your poems out and your book out, and you are a good friend to people, and you have enough resources to keep yourself going long enough, you will probably make it to “real poet” status (whatever that means.) No, this does not mean tomorrow you will wake up with your picture on the cover of Poets & Writers, but if your dream is to publish a book of poetry with a good small press, that is a very achievable goal if you send out long and hard enough, get a few breaks, and just…well…don’t give up.

2. Don’t Get Distracted from the Goal, and Pay Attention to Those Parachutes. It would have been easy for Katniss to just slow down long enough to get killed, or to play the game poorly enough that she might have become an easy target, or ignore the help she was getting in those little parachutes because she wasn’t paying attention, or to become so interested in Peeta that she lost focus. When she was injured and in pain, she didn’t stop trying to win. Bad things will probably happen to you along the “life of poetry” – you will be rejected, you will get sick or have family or money or job things interfere with your writing, you will feel discouraged or cynical – so pay attention to those little parachutes from the sky when they appear. Those rewards will be enough to keep you going – a publication in a journal you’ve loved forever, a good review of your book, someone writing you a note about how your work changed their life. (Those of you who’ve read the books, please don’t talk about the parachutes from Mockingjay…obviously that would be a different kid of metaphor.)

3. The Capital May Be Corrupt, and Set Against You; Be So Good They Have to Pay Attention. Remember the scene where Katniss gets the game designer’s attention when they are ignoring her by nailing the apple in the pig’s mouth with an arrow? Remember how President Snow wanted to kill Katniss but couldn’t, because the head game designer and the audience were all cheering for her? If you’re a female writer and have paid attention to things like the VIDA numbers, you know the deck is stacked against you. If you remember Foetry, you know that a lot of book contests – not all of them, but probably a good amount – are fixed. If you read a recent experiment where a story published by the New Yorker was sent to the New Yorker from the slush pile and rejected and feel like – well, no one can get published in the big names from the slush pile – well, you may have a point. Most poets will be ignored, their work forgotten, their books unread and unnoticed. But you know what? Be so good at what you do they can’t ignore you. Write the most excellent poems, reviews, fiction that you possibly can. Get your name out there when you get the chance. Don’t shrink from the limelight. Wear the flaming dress.