Trust Yourself

     This reading was in a way profound to me. The author discusses what I think is the most daunting yet appealing thing about writing poetr; the intimacy of opening yourself up on paper. Goldberg is write, writing poetry often means opening yourself up and being intimate on paper. The intimacy of that alone is a daunting concept, and even more so because I believe that knowing someone may be critical of your work makes it all the worse. You feel scrutinized and in a way, vulnerable.
     As Goldberg said, you leave yourself naked, and forfeit a level of control. I believe to create something truly worth reading, it has to have truth to it. I dont necissarily mean truth in the sense of truth and lies, but truth in the sense of something being real. The truth is often a hard thing to see, especially within ourselves. Ego, self conciousness, and confidence or lack there of can often get in the way of that truth. To bring that truth out of ourselves and put it on paper, you have to be honest with yourself first, then be honest to anyone who might pick up what youve written. The truth is already almost always hard to get to anyway but it needs to be in what you do.
     I also believe Goldberg is saying to get ready for the fact that even once you leave yourself vulnerable, some people are still going to kick you. It makes me think of relationships and love. In love, ideally, one should be open, honest, and vulnerable. Even though you know theyre probably going to hurt you in the long run, you still have to do it becuase if you dont, you may shut out that one person thats right for you. In the same way, when you write something, dont expect everyone to appreciate it. Some things just dont resonate for some people. So, when you write, I think Goldberge is saying write for yourself, and know that even if almost everyone thinks your work is shit, just know that if you wrote with truth, it will mean something, maybe everything, to somebody.