In Praise of Praise?

I was at a birthday party for my mother this weekend. I said something that I can't even quite remember and she said "Paul, that's quite poetic." And then my dad said, "but don't you know, he writes poetry."

I probably should have said "Why yes, I do.", or something like that. InsteadI felt uncomfortable.

I have an ambivilent attitude towards having people pay attention to me. There was a time when my ambition seemed to be to not be noticed. Thankfully, those days are past, but I still feel not totally comfortable with being the centre of attention. So I probably don't take advantage of opportunities to present my work to people like I could. But doing theatre has brought out the attention seeker in me. I've seen pictures from shows where I'm clearly revelling in the spotlight. And of course, if I were a shrinking violet I wouldn't have a blog.
This ambivilence has come up lately with an added dimension, with people (still!) coming up to me and telling me that they saw me on TV coming out of Dawson. It attracted some nice attention from people being supportive. But still...it feels strange.

I also don't take praise terribly well- it's not that I don't like it, I just don't know how to respond to or even digest it. I feel awkward. Again, a couple of friends have said that I write great poetry and I haven't been sure how to process that. I'm not great with critisism either. The problem of course is that for me to have any kind of impact as an artist I'll need to seek attention and be able to take compliments and criticism. Without compliments or criticism, all that's left is indifferance.

At this same party, someone who's recently put on a play said that he was pleased that the last show was sold out, but he was also pleased that two people walked outduring the performance. "At least I'm getting a reaction", he said. How true.







Note the attention seeker at the front of this group shot...