for anything but context.
poetry is like a river and you need
to know where you are going
in your word trajectory.
but never, never, never, never,
never model your words
or your form from shakespeares,
poes, or even whitmans.
people in the year 20 and 11
who use words like “thou” or “azure”
in their poems are losers,
and those of us who
have done it all ourselves
are well aware of this. I did.
instead, really shake some shit up.
tell us how you see the world.
don’t swear too much, but swear enough
to make a point.
we don’t live in a dignified culture so stop
pretending to be dignified.
steal great words from good poets.
play with punctuation.
question morality.
abandon your dreams of fame.
talk to outcasts and use them
as the characters in narratives.
immortalize them. write for them.
most of all, understand your importance,
and your total lack of importance.
you are nothing and you are everything,
sewing dreams we need,
determined to unravel.
* thank you to adam ortiz, my fellow
english major at wheaton, who let me steal
his inspiring poem right from his facebook.
it was too good not to share. *
* thank you to adam ortiz, my fellow
english major at wheaton, who let me steal
his inspiring poem right from his facebook.
it was too good not to share. *
I'm definitely not a poet but I do love to write. I think this just inspired me to write something new from the heart. Thank you! And I LOVE the image you used. I could design a whole office around that typewriter.
ReplyDeleteThis is so inspiring! And so true! Thanks for sharing :)
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