Email to a youngish poet

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Your new poem is tight, smart, without any false notes, and the title is fantastic, but, but, but, you're basically writing in the Ashbery mode. This is no fault of your own, since Ashbery casts a huge shadow across contemporary American poetry. That wry, intelligent noodling, with just a touch of pathos, is showing up everywhere, and not many people can do them well even, as you have managed to pull off here. Still, you must move beyond this. To take real chances, you must lose yourself, freak out a little, become wild yet still in charge. I know that sounds oxymoronic, but that's what it takes to luck into a super rare, truly authentic poem. When I saw Anne Boyer in Philly recently, I said to her, "I'm preparing to write my first poem." And who knows, maybe I won't ever get there, so welcome to the gestation club, motherfucker! Technically, I'd say pay more attention to sentence lengths, try to vary them more. Also, be more conscious of mixing dictions and modes, as in be a more versatile ventriloquist, and speak from all of your orifices, even those you didn't know exist.

I haven't been wearing my poetry cap, but I hope the above still makes some sense.




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