Five More Things a Poet Needs
6: Patience
Nothing in the arts – any of the arts – comes quickly. Sure, we read about the song that was finished in fifteen minutes or the story that came flowing out in a half an hour but those are very rare exceptions and if you examine them closely, you’ll see that most of the time they’d have been much, much better if more time and care had been taken with them.
The good ones that came quickly? Usually, the artist has been carrying them around in her head for months, working them out, worrying them into the shape that emerges.
Most of the time, though, a good piece of work comes slowly, agonizingy slowly. You have to wait it out. Often, you feel it will never come and, if you don’t have the necessary patience, you’ll become frustrated and will ruin the piece by either rushing it or abandoning it.
7: The Ability to Reject Models
Too much of the time, poetry does not reflect real life. It doesn’t go into the heart, mind and soul and demonstrate the complexities there. Instead, it is based on other poems. It’s only natural; reading work we admire makes us want to write. If I’m stuck, I take Ted Berrigan’s books off of the shelves, read through them randomly and before long I’m ready to write.
What I do not do is try to write a Ted Berrigan poem. Berrigan is inspiration, not a pattern. What makes Ted Berrigan worth reading is that he is the only man who can write the way he does. If I try to imitate him, the result is forced, inauthentic and lacking in soul.
My task as an artist is to reject him as a model and find my own way, which is another reason poets need patience; it takes a long time to find out who you are as an artist.
Television, movies and genre books are based on other episodes of TV, movies and genre books and we’ve all seen the results: diminishing audiences, boredom and rejection.
Why should poetry go down that road?
8: A Good Library.
When I ask younger poets who they read, an astonishing number confess that they don’t read poetry at all. This might sound contradictory, considering that I just called for poets to reject models, but you can’t write good poetry if you don’t read it. In fact, I’ll take it a step further: you can’t write anything well if you don’t read poetry. You have to develop a sensitivity to the language. You have to learn how words work and why the first word that pops into your head is not the best one. You have to learn when and why to break lines and stanzas.
Like any skill, there’s a lot of basic craft to be learned and, with poetry, you have to reach a point where you sense these things.
Only by reading widely and indiscriminately can you build up that intuitive sense that will lead you to the next thing a poet needs:
9: Originality.
When I was younger, I used to pick up a W. S. Merwin book and after going through a few poems, I’d be of two minds. I’d admire the hell out of what he was doing and go into despair because I knew I could never do that.
It took a long time for me to realize what I’m going to tell you now: I’m not and never will be W. S. Merwin and that’s okay. The world doesn’t need another Merwin; we already have one. What the world needs is for me to be the best me I can be. I’m vain enough to believe that I’ve got something reasonably important to say, a unique view of what we laughingly call reality and that a few people at least can benefit from an exposure to my thoughts and feelings.
If I’m busy trying to become the next Merwin, then no one is going to hear me.
What’s true for me is true for all poets. We need to hear your own unique voice, to be exposed to your own uniqueness. And that’s one more reason why you have to reject models and delve ever more deeply into your own mind, heart and soul.
When I tell young poets these things, someone invariably says, “I’m eighteen. What have I got to say?” I answer by giving them Flannery O’Connor’s quote: If a writer survives childhood, he has a lifetime of material.
10: A Strong but Controlled Ego
From the previous discussion, it should be obvious that a poet needs a healthy sense of her own self-worth. You need a strong but controlled ego; you cannot go around believing that you are better than other people, because you are not and believing that you are will lead you into lying to yourself and invalidate both your work and your life.
You must, however, believe you have something worthwhile to share and the ability to share it. You need to be able to see yourself as strong enough to pull off the challenge you have set for yourself: writing good, strong original poems that offer a voice, an idea and an emotional effect that can’t be had anywhere else.
That calls for a certain amount of ego, a healthy self-respect. You have to keep the ego in a box, though; it must apply to your work and your work only. Begin thinking of yourself as bigger and better than other people and you lose the connection; how can you create good work for people you hold in contempt?