“Open call for poetry,”
the zines and mags announce emphatically.
“We want you, we need you,
trust us with your words.”
They aren’t lying, they aren’t false,
but the actual requirements tell a skewed story;
dry prose in small print which dulls your dreams
and drags you back into the reality
that it is unlikely that you,
the writer of poetry,
will likely be a poet.

For it is impossible to be a poet.
Hard enough to write poetry;
damningly difficult to produce, promote, please & price
those raw crumbs of your unearthed soul.

You might think
that to be a poet,
one must simply write poetry & claim the title.
There is no official gate that prevents you
from finding the success you seek.
Unfortunately, you are naïve.
To be a poet requires endless conquests
of your own mind and others’ hearts.
The crusade is long and lonely.

To be a poet requires much sacrifice and yields little gain.
One must be comfortable resting in the doldrums,
ready to jump to attention in the crest of a wave.
Ideas flood the brain but coherent thoughts come
in the inconsistent trickle
of the end of a thunderstorm.
There until they’re not.

To be a poet is to be a contradiction.
Poetry must be timeless and relevant—
created in a vacuum and stored in a vault;
erased of traces of inspiration
until a themed call warrants
thumbing through archived phrasing,
hoping to find an aged thread of relatable content
to weave a new tapestry of captivating storytelling.

To be a poet means shameless exposure of self.
Promote your accolades but don’t share the associated work.
Curate your essence to yield engaged supporters
but guard your content as raw, precious gems—
yet to be assessed; debatably holding value.
If you dare to post publicly, make the debut count,
but understand only your meager following
will see the doomed release of your genius.
The elite won’t publish poems tainted
by the enjoyment of the common people.

To be a poet requires action and platform.
Stand on your box of soap
to loudly expound on your narrative of the world.
Your words should be fresh but not clean;
written with abandon but restrained into recognizable shapes;
scrubbed into stark minimalism
still possessing maximum potential for impact
on the ill-defined masses.
Don’t be safe, don’t be lovely, don’t be soft, don’t ever stop—
the people desire a steady stream
of your wild consciousness.
Don’t forget:
you owe your inner being to the faceless scroll.

To be a poet, to be an artist, to be creative is to be controversial.
The edge in your voice may be as sharp as a sword
or dull as a butter knife, but to be taken seriously
you must have that je ne sais quoi.
Don’t write what you want if you want to be published.
Write what you think “they” want.
Consider your commercial viability.
Be ready to defend your creativity at every turn.
Articulate your inherent worth in five single-spaced pages.

To write a poem is a humble cause.
To collect your poetry is an honored pursuit.
To share your work is a double-edged sword—
often critiqued,
frequently misunderstood,
endless rejection
rarely accepted.

To be a poet is possible,
just be sure to read the small print
if you ever want to see your words in print.

SDG