Poetry Advice

[brazencaucasian]

I was recently (slightly) scolded by a well respected poet

Comments

[sirenoftitan1]

Robb told me never to make a gesture below the waist. Believe it or not, this was super-helpful.

[mojgani]

i was shared similar advice by whom i believe is probably the same poet of your situation. he gave good advice of taking dough out of the bank and just always have a change bank of fives and tens ready to go for travel/shows

[martyoutloud]

When I was in grad school, Marie Howe and I were talking about what I wanted to do after finishing -- which, of course, was teach poetry! And she said something along the lines of how really if we're going to be poets, we should, if we can manage it, have day jobs that have nothing to do with poetry, we should be plumbers or sculptors or whatever, because after a long day of reading poetry, talking about poetry, teaching poetry, really the last thing in the world you want to do is sit down and write it.

And I took that to heart -- not assuming then that I'd never teach poetry or that I'd never have it be my "day job," but that it's OK, probably even better, to have a chunk of your life that is not entirely centered around your art.

[brazencaucasian]

I like that advice. I find that when I was working in the print shop I wrote more. Of course having a nice 45 minute train ride helped.

When you do a lot of poetry related stuff its easy to think you're creating new work when actually you're doing everything BUT writing.

[eskimopie]

Matthea Harvey pointed out that a lot of times the last line or two of my poems are really their titles.