Moon Beams #24 - Mark Danowsky

On ousting self-doubt and uplifting new voices in poetry, fellow poet and ONE ART founder and editor Mark Danowsky shared guidance he caught early through a handwritten note from Billy Collins himself:

“He basically was like, ‘No, you just have to understand, your job is to write things, and put it out into the world, you can’t worry about how it’s received, that’s not what you’re supposed to focus on,” Mark said in our chat for episode #24 of “Moon Beams.”

“If you’re a writer, you write, and you share,’” said Mark. "And of course that’s the right kind of mentoring advice to give someone, not to be like, ‘Yeah, you’re right, you know what? It is a really noisy world out there, maybe you should make yourself small and not try to contribute to the conversation.’ Of course you’re going to tell people, ‘Make yourself heard, try to contribute to the conversation.’”

We covered plenty more in our chat, including deep dives on the ongoing development and despair that can come with AI, Mark’s poem “No Sanctuary is an Island” in “Peacock Journal”, Mai Der Vang and her collection Yellow Rain, Tristan Harris and the Center for Humane Technology, marketing as a poet, over- versus under-reliance on narrative in poetry, and meeting the conflicts that can come from telling one’s story in autobiographical work, which is never any one person’s story.

I am honored and thrilled to share this conversation with the world, and appreciate the care, generosity, and guidance Mark consistently brings to the poetry community as an editor, writer, and grappler with the process and issues that come with making art in our time and place.