so you want to be a writer?

A veces el no escribir me inquieta, en especial cuando debo presentar un texto y mientras faltan palabras, sobran excusas para no hacer el intento y vencer la susodicha página en blanco. En ocasiones cuestiono este afán y pretensiones de escribir: ¿Acaso estoy forzando algo que imagino natural en mí? ¿Será que ese blanco intenta decirme aquello que me niego a creer? ¿Por qué la obsesión en escribir cuando no poseo la disciplina y pasión necesaria? Una posible respuesta la encontraría en un poema de Charles Bukowski. Según él, me esfuerzo demasiado y no precisamente escribiendo sino pensando en lo que debería estar escribiendo. Quizás deba tomar en cuenta su sugerencia y olvidar por completo este afán. Si escribir resulta para mi necesario, las palabras habrán de llegar en su momento; y aunque algunos consideren esta posición despreocupada y hasta cierto punto mediocre (aún con toda la verdad que guarda), a mí, por el momento, me basta.



so you want to be a writer?

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.


if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.


Poema tomado de Poets.org
Traducción al español aquí.