madness

It's been a mad week. I've judged a poetry competition, performed at a poetry festival, organised a magazine launch... Everything feels so public, exposed. Everything you do is something that someone else can take exception to. Any expression of opinion will offend those holding a different opinion, it seems - and where does it leave us? It is easy for the hegemonical to say: OK, say what you like, fearlessly. I feel exposed and vulnerable because my taste and judgment is open to scrutiny.

Uncomfortable though it may be for me (and it is), it's quite right. Flip the coin on its head, and I'm the one making judgments, and why on earth shouldn't I be challenged? I should be able to defend my choices of prizewinner, poem to read, poem to put in a magazine. Of course it's incredibly subjective. Our tastes are formed by so many things - what we read and like affects the person we become and what that person will read and like. Examples, please.