do's / don'ts for young poets

thanks for the tag from PWDJ. "4 do's & don'ts for new writers." After you read mine, please post yours on your blog. I personally tag SS, RK, KW, RJ, PP, MM.

Do

1. Read everything out loud. Over and over again. Especially if it's a poet you're having trouble understanding emotionally or intellectually. Pick a poem, find a quiet place alone and read it aloud at least ten times. Try different ways to read line break - pause, don't pause, etc. Poetry on the page is mere transcription. Let your chest hear it too.

2. Go to readings. Support your local coffee shop, experimental theatre, university reading series, converted garage. Search YouTube. Absorb everything around you.

3. Travel. Journey far enough away from this continent to realize America is a spoiled brat only centuries old. And/or travel far enough inward – meditation, mushrooms, marijuana - to realize most Americans are spoiled brats, no matter who you vote for.

4. Share your work with other writers. Poetry is not a locked diary with a skeleton key. Poetry is a strat plugged into a twin reverb. People are listening. Except Emily Dickinson, of course.

Don't

1. Believe anything you've written is new or innovative.

2. Don't dismiss traditional forms.

3. Don't believe you’re a better writer than anyone else.

4. Don’t relate rejection from a magazine or book contest having anything to do with the quality of your writing.