Making Art Isn’t About Being Good at It

One fun thing about being a dad to four kids is watching the older ones react when they see their younger siblings say or do something that will trigger a response from me.

A few years ago, my youngest, T, was talking about how other people were doing something to justify why she should be able to do that same thing. K and E shook their heads and said, “Rookie mistake,” and laughed.

T got to hear my thoughts about how the standards for our conduct are not set by other people, and that she must learn to create her own standards that she holds herself accountable for.

While she was not thrilled to hear this talk from me on that occasion, or any of the other subsequent occasions, I’m happy to report she has become a very independent-minded teenager.

Around the same time, T’s older brother G announced he was horrible at poetry. He only wrote bad poems. K happened to be there for this pronouncement as well. This time she said, “Get comfortable. Dad has a lot of thoughts about this. He gets pretty passionate.”

She wasn’t wrong.

There is no such thing as a bad poem. That’s not to say all poems are good, or have the same inherent…