The modesty topos

I realized with some degree of amusement that my first post (”Mea culpa,” below) actually functions as an example of “the modesty topos”–a fancy term used by scholars to talk about authors who apologize or defer or otherwise self-deprecate at the beginning of their texts. Women seem to employ the technique more often than men (and are infamous for apologizing in classroom settings for what they are about to say before they speak), although men of a certain era–the sixteenth century, for instance–did this in epigraphs as well. After all, publishing was considered vulgar.

Why is she going on about this? Enter frustrated scholar confession: I am a frustrated scholar. Sorry. (!) I spent many years (15) in the academic world, teaching college students the joys of Renaissance literature and the difference between the semi-colon and the comma. When a particularly intrepid doctor informed me three years ago that I would never get pregnant working the number of hours I was at the time (about 70/wk., 7 days/wk.), I quit. I resigned mid-year, between semesters, and my daily anxiety attacks immediately disappeared. I am now a poet, working in an office at home (actually in a separate building, which is good because I’m not tempted to come to work in pj’s). I love it and only mildly, once in a great while, miss the highs of teaching in the classroom. More than the practical aspects, I miss the sense of identity that comes with having a career. I still consider my writing a career and take it very seriously. I never miss a day in the office and still “go to work” on the weekends. But it’s obviously my own thing, and very flexible, and doesn’t include company letterhead. Most people don’t know what to say when I respond, “I’m a poet,” to their query about what do I do. I know they’re thinking, “well, yes, dear, I am too–when I can find the time.” Sigh. I’m not too bothered by all this, really, because I know that I am very, very lucky to be working and publishing at something I love.