7 Things You Should Know

Date January 1, 2008

(about poetry and being a poet)

1. A word assemblage isn’t a poem just because someone says it is; no one really knows what a poem is.

2. Most readers of poetry are poets; no one reads poetry anymore.

3. Calling oneself a poet is to call attention to how one doesn’t fit; poets are one of the varieties of misfit that can’t be fixed.

4. Form is an obsolete means by which the academic old-guard have tried to control the world of poetry to their advantage; writing with forms is one of the most freeing experiences a poet can hope for.

5. It’s more fun to call attention to the poems you like than to rant at the poems you don’t (and it hurts less); ranting will always attract more readers than poems.

6. Poets are solipsistic navel-gazing introverts of the highest order, dreawing the curtains around themselves tighter and tighter; poets have egos like bodybuilders have biceps.

7. Poetry speaks and says what nothing else can; silence is poetry.

[following Aaron, Tad, James, & Deborah]

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One Response to “7 Things You Should Know”

  1. beau said:

    January 2nd, 2008 at 5:40 am

    Time to tune back in at the Cafe? Probably not. Unless there’s a new voice there we’ve probably heard all we’re going to hear. But them’s fightin’ words, Son, of the “What is Art” nature. I would offer an addendum to #6 “…biceps, or geeks have pencil necks.”