1 Commit. A poem a year. A poem a day. Commit to poetry. One good poem every two weeks, equals one book every two years.
2 Read. Read great stuff to get motivated or intimidated. Read awful stuff to get angry or inspired. Think you can do better...
3 Share. With friends, audiences, workshops, poets, publications.
Shove yourself against the elastic band rope that defines your comfort zone. The band will stretch.
4 Rewrite. What do lame poems and great poems have in common? Both can be improved.
5 Avoid clichés.
Avoid them, like the plague.
6 Play. Experiment. Not every poem will be your best poem. Embrace the achievement of creating crappy poems.
7 Always having a submission in the mail prevents rejection letters from meaning so much. Keeping one poem in the mail, means a potential "Yes" is always on the way.
8 Missed shots are to basketball players as rejection slips are to poets. If you’re not missing shots, you’re not shooting enough. A slump of missed shots beats a slump of no shots.
9 Beware procrastination. If you must succumb, trick procrastination into helping you. Procrastinate writing, by submitting; procrastinate submitting, by writing.
10 Physicality helps poetry. I don’t know why. Walking, juggling, stretching. See tip number nine, re: procrastination).
11 Find a critique group who is encouraging and honest. There will be times when you leave your group because you’re doing more meeting than writing. Stay in touch. These groups are hard to find.
12 Learn to critique others well. Critiquing others helps more than you'd guess.
13 Adverbs.
I don’t really like them. They are very avoidable.
I don't like them. They are avoidable.
Adverbs are red flags that read "Lack of Trust". Either you don’t trust your skill, or you don’t trust your reader’s intelligence. Your reader knows that when the main character skips, he/she skips happily. So skip "happily". Adjectives are sneaky little buggers too.
14 Writer’s block... Writer's block. Meals don’t get cooked by staring at the fridge. Bad poems are easier to start than great ones. Bad poems are easier to improve than non-existent ones. Start cooking.
15 Poetry comes from going outdoors, talking with friends, reading, and listening to music. But beware (again see tip number nine). If you’re asking yourself if something’s a procrastination trap, assume it is.
16 Babies learn to talk through imitating. Learning a language takes effort. Finding your voice, happens.
Imitate your favourite authors. Work hard. Finding your voice, happens.
17 You are a poet. Own it. Call yourself a poet. If you feel phony, say it more. If you can’t, then call yourself an aspiring poet. If you write poetry, you are a poet. Headlock your fear, and give it a noogie from me.
18 Write poems. Singers sing, painters paint, writers write. Poets write poems.
19 Tempted to go on the internet? Imagine how many poems you could write if you spent all your internet time, writing poetry. Picture your own shelf in the library, your own section in the bookstore. Internet off. Write on.
20 Share your poetry when you’re ready for someone to dislike it. Doesn’t mean they will, doesn't mean you want them to, doesn’t mean they won’t hurt you, just means you’re ready to share. Time always wins.
21 Keep a notebook (or whatever) by your bed. If you use it, bonus, a lot of earth-changingly wonderful ideas come just before sleep, and from dreams (a few are even usable the next morning).
If you don’t use the notebook, you still have one by your bed, and that makes calling yourself a poet, a wee bit easier.
22 If your title doesn’t have an item your reader can eat, smell, touch, hear, see, or feel, then your poem better be bubbling over with them. Cold french fries, fresh dogshit, broken wedding rings, rain bouncing off asphalt, sexy black dresses, wiggly leeches… these are the images which change your reader. Readers might “get” your poem, they might not. But if you make them experience these sensations, by the end of your poem, your reader will be changed.
23 Titles name your poem. Great titles improve and deepen your poem; they become an inseparable part of your poem.
24 Spelling and proofreading and penmanship and intelligence, do not a poet make. Sacrifice and effort and sharing and rewriting: that's the stuff of poets.
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