I struggle with what it means to be a writer. Writing is so accessible, this very platform proves it, and everybody writes. But some people write badly. Are they writers too?

"All bad poetry is sincere" makes a better title, but what Oscar Wilde actually said is "All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling."

There is something to be said for the quality of an art, but there is also something to be said for the person who tries truly to express himself in words and fails miserably. There is something to be said for trying. And I think Wilde's quote applies not only to poetry, but to all of writing, to all of art.

What is the job of a writer? What do I mean when I call myself a writer? As I look back on the writers that came before me, and all of today's great writers, and it's sheer common sense, the conclusion is that the job of a writer is to write truth.

Now, you all can disagree on what truth is, or whether or not there is Truth or if it's just truth, but I cannot help but think that much great writing has survived because people found that it contained some facet of truth, and that facet of truth makes the writing worth keeping. Truth is timeless. If you read great writers you can feel truth in their words.

Good writers write truth.

Bad writers distort the truth. This is why I absolutely despise bad poetry. It actually physically hurts me to read bad poetry. It hurts me less to read bad prose, but it hurts then too.

However, however, however. I think I'm wrong. I think I'm wrong to feel so strongly that way.

Because the other part of good writing is that good writers write in blood.

Good writers write from their passions, and you can feel that when you read them. The greatest works of literature, the greatest poems, the greatest writing, they are all written in blood. The masterpieces are painted in blood.

Then, bad poetry is truth distorted passionately. It's truth distorted genuinely.

And I think that's what Wilde meant. Bad poetry is not good (obviously), but it was not written to be bad. It was written from a genuine feeling.

And there is something intrinsically good about genuine, because genuine itself is a facet of truth.

Genuine cannot turn bad poetry into good poetry, but it does mean that I should not so passionately hate bad poetry.

Seth Godin said that "Art is what we're doing when we do our best work." I guess not everybody's art is writing.

So what to do with genuinely bad art, poetry, writing, photography (and gifts)?

There is something valuable about genuine, and truth is very big.