Is it I or my ego that wants to write a poetry book?

Any piece of work should make us question whether we are just driven by ego, spouting out drivel and wasting the reader’s time … or if we have something meaningful to contribute

I had set myself several writing aims for the back end of this year. One was entering the National Poetry competition, the shortest and least time-consumptive of my targets. I missed the deadline. I have several efforts I could have entered, but none that I thought would have gained me an honourable mention. So without the notion of a potential mention, I failed to enter.

A fair amount of procrastination can account for the failing. I had ideas, and set out plans but never sat down to execute one. I even attended their free workshop to inspire ideas. So how much of my wanting to write is motivated by ego? Is that not why only a week after not wanting to write for the competition, I felt compelled to put together a few pieces I have already written into a poetry collection? Is it just so that I can clinch some sort of egoic grip around a fistful of meaningless letters? The hope that someone might take the cover sandwiching the worthless words inside and put it on a shelf next to a Keats collection, so that it may take some meaning?

If I am writing for the wrong reasons, then why have I got a few diaries full of scribbles never to be seen? Can something which is written for the intention of being published still retain the innocence and self-exploration that a piece such as this can? Or am I only sitting here pressing these keys, in what I assume to be a coherent order, so that you may glance your eyes over the sum of my work before your fingers return you to doom-scrolling?

I didn’t have the issue of needing to discern between what to publish until I felt compelled to attempt to explore how serious one can get with putting words on a page, as I am trying through enterprises such as this or sharing poetry. These few paragraphs here I am sure will help me orient myself somewhere, with the thousands I will hopefully write through this blog offering a better pinpoint.