HERE ARE more poetry tips.
61. Poetry is finding words for the first stirrings of love, the beginning of desire in the gaze of someone looking — no, gawking! — at you.
62. Poetry slows time down for the reader to focus on the deep redness, the strong sweet smell, the velvety petals of a rose—an experience often ruined by wannabe poets who rush to point out the thorns, and what they’re supposed to symbolize.
63. Genuine poetry is demanding. It means losing time and one’s self while concentrating on language, searching (or reading) the best choices and order of words. So, no to easy rhymes, no to instant poems. Unless you are writing for greeting cards, and standup comedians.
64. Good poetry is tentative, unsure, uncertain, human, biased, prejudiced, debatable, a mere personal opinion. Only a bad poet should teach, preach, judge, moralize, proselytize, philosophize, pontificate, educate. (Note: Most literature teachers are not poets!)
65. Poetry is the impulse to describe to the beloved, the other, the powerful feeling, the surprise, the wonder. If one has to think what to write, it’s not poetry. It’s just a composition writing exercise.
66. Poetry is making love to the world. Gently or violently, it does not matter. What only matters is that you describe each kiss and every thrust the best way you can.
67. Successful poetry closes the gap between the mind of the poet and the things of this world. Until it is a direct translation of thoughts to words.
68. Poetry is telling your personal experience into language. But hopefully not in the perfected stupid diction of Shakespeare, or whichever poet you copied. Ever thought of using your own unique phrases, your own set of images?
69. Poetry is art—mother of artifice. Poetry doesn’t have to be faithful, it just has to be true. You can have a broken hymen, and have not necessarily been raped.
70. Poetry is difficult, because in a meme culture, it’s hard to be original. Everybody dances to the same TikTok choreography. Everybody wants approval, and to be accepted, admired like a copycat rockstar.
71. Poetry is self-disclosure. The poet reveals his/her unique stupidity, vulnerability, strength, and faulty way of seeing the world. There is a world of difference in the choice between big and humongous. Between gigantic as a whale, and ginormous like an elephant.
72. Great poetry crystallizes in words a singular, unique, unrepeatable experience. The smile on your face as you offered me a rose. The smile on his face as he handed me a rose. If the smiles are the same, and a rose is just a rose, at least you two have different names. And even if those, too, are the same, how I feel for each of you… is poetry.
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73. Poetry is for everyone. Some are called to write it, some are called to simply read and share it. Others have a special job to criticize and laugh at it, sometimes unfairly.
74. Poetry starts with a keen observation of the world. Only crazy poets (and obviously, Air Supply) “make love out of nothing at all.” Don’t be so equally presumptuous!
75. Poetic tongue comes from poetic mind comes from poetic eye. First, you see, then you think, then you translate into words. And if you have a tongue, you French kiss.
76. Those who claim to write out of pure imagination are liars. Avoid them. If a poem has no basis in your reality, discard it. Find another that has.
77. You can write any poem you want. Just don’t expect everybody—honestly, anybody—to read it. We are all so busy with our Facebook lives.
78. Modern readers prefer Poetry Lite—small bytes, short memory. Pandered to ADD (officially ADHD), Twitter, and Instagram market. If you can’t beat them, beat yourself.
79. Nothing wrong with 25-word poems. Some people live on cup noodles all their lives. They may die early, but who cares? For you to remember Basho’s bonsai of a frog-pond poem, he had to write 1,001 haiku.
80. If you want to be famous, be a pornstar. At least, you will enjoy a good thrashing. (And thrushing, if it comes to that.) Poetry won’t make you famous. At least, not as fast as stupid TikTok can.
81. You don’t need to study poetry, poetics, Shakespeare, and the literary classics. It is your divine right to be ignorant, and your unalienable right to be illiterate! Insist to be stupid!
82. Copying bad poems is the best way to gain notoriety. Readers will definitely remember your name as the writer they would want most to avoid.
83. If you want to call attention to your poems, employ wrong spelling and terrible grammar. Readers really like it when they are finally smarter than stupid poets and writers.
84. Oh, did I already say there is no money in poetry? It’s true. These days, you may have to pay for people to read you. But it’s okay, because you can actually feel like a rockstar when you have finally sold a single book. Good luck with that!
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It’s ballsy of me to be giving poetry tips like this.
Maybe even a little presumptuous.
But a lot of people like to hear what I have to say.
(If not, why would they be requesting me to give creative writing lessons online? Why would they be asking me to be a resource speaker in their poetry workshops?)
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Anyway, it is as I said. I know what I’m doing.
And I am loved by those who want to hear from me.
Like my teachings make perfect sense to them.
What other people have muddled for them, I clarify.
And I dispense my writing wisdom for free!
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I have no high expectations. No desire to be admired.
I operate with a “Take It or Leave It” mentality.
Deal or No Deal.
If it’s useful to you, take it. If not, take a walk.
Everything is not about you, idiot!
Sometimes, it’s about Poetry, and Peter Solis Nery./PN
