Rule #1 |
Never say anything in a poem that you wouldn't say in a bar. |
Rule #2 |
If you can't be profound be vague. |
Rule #3 |
There's a difference between poetry and hebephrenia. |
Rule #4 |
McNeilley Dictum #4:
Cut off the last line! This will make your poem better!
(If this doesn't work, keep cutting off the last line.) |
Rule #5 |
Never discuss bad poetry with anyone who hasn't read Ferlinghetti. |
Rule #6 |
Poetry lies between synonyms. |
Rule #7 |
The difference between self-expression and communication is poetry. |
Rule #8 |
If you can't spell a word don't use it. |
Rule #9 |
The fact that it's bad writing doesn't make it good poetry. |
Rule #10 |
Don't emote. Evoke. |
Rule #11 |
Linebreaks don't make poetry any more than stuttering does. |
Rule #12 |
Try to be understood too quickly. |
Rule #13 |
If it doesn't sound like poetry to a Lower Slobovian it probably isn't. |
Rule #14 |
Every modern poem must contain at least one em dash abuse. |
Rule #15 |
Audiences don't come to use their imaginations. They come to use yours. |
Rule #16 |
To each their own taste, even those with none. |
Rule #17 |
Don't use clichés. Create them. |
Rule #18 |
The Egoless Motto:
"If you don't think your poetry is competing against the works of others you're probably right." |
Rule #19 |
Don't worry about your voice until someone is listening. |
Rule #20 |
Writing is to poetry as paper is to stone. |
Rule #21 |
Poetry isn't about the writer or the reader. It's about everything in between. |
Rule #22 |
You aren't a poet until the janitor says you are. |
Rule #23 |
The Gerard Ian Lewis Rule:
Triteness is a minor flaw, easily remedied (should nothing else occur to you) by adding a mysterious reference to a goat in the last line. |
Rule #24 |
The Elizabeth Alexander Rule:
Poetry's only selling point is that it is cheaper than tear gas. |
Rule #25 |
The fact that it's boring doesn't mean it's poetry. |
Rule #26 |
We aren't stoned enough for this. |
Rule #27 |
The Pistols at Dawn Rule:
Never compare a poet's work to Ferlinghetti's unless you're a better shot than target. |
Rule #28 |
The Joan Houlihan Rule:
Any poetry reading longer than 20 minutes is a hostage situation. |
Rule #29 |
The merit of your words should exceed the considerable value of silence. |
Rule #30 |
Poetry cannot be paraphrased. |
Rule #31 |
If you cannot scan verse you cannot imagine free verse. |
Rule #32 |
"I should rather be skinned alive than exploit my feelings in writing. I refuse to consider Art a drain-pipe for passion, a kind of chamberpot, a slightly more elegant substitute for gossip. No, no! Genuine poetry is not the scum of the heart." - Flaubert Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) |
Rule #33 |
Poetry needs to get over itself. |
Rule #34 |
Tripe details the unspeakably obvious.
Poetry details the unspeakable obvious. |
Rule #35 |
People don't read poetry for the same reason you don't read film scripts. |
Rule #36 |
Memory is the difference between storing and misplacing.
Intelligence is the difference between planting and burying. |
Rule #37 |
Free versers don't count. |
Rule #38 |
There is always a deadline. |
Rule #39 |
The Rule of Two and Three:
Two is a contrast.
Three is a trend. |
Rule #40 |
Bad poetry haunts the author. Good poetry haunts the reader. |
Rule #41 |
Journalism is about what you say.
Poetry is about how you say it.
Diplomacy is about how you avoid saying it.
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Rule #42 |
Prose is message. Poetry is words.
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Rule #43 |
All those who distinguish between art and audience understand neither.
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Rule #44 |
"I want your honest opinion" is never entirely true.
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Rule #45 |
Poetry is cheaper and safer than other general anaesthetics.
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Rule #46 |
If you ain't getting better you're getting worse.
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Rule #47 |
The funny thing about arrogance is where you find it.
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Rule #48 |
Writers shouldn't write better than readers can read.
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Rule #49 |
It's not too clever to appear so.
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Rule #50 |
The 50-50 Rule: Fewer than 1 in 50 can recite a poem written in the last 50 years.
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Rule #51 |
Denial is not a cure.
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Rule #52 |
Poetry used to have fans. Now it has constituencies.
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Rule #53 |
Defining poetry by content is like trying to grab a drowning donkey by its bubbles.
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Rule #54 |
A picture contains a thousand words. A poem contains a thousand pictures.
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Rule #55 |
Art is the opposite of time. It does not age, never weakens, and cannot be forgotten.
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Rule #56 |
Fewer people know the fundamentals of poetry than the rudiments of Klingon.
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Rule #57 |
"It's more fun if you take it seriously." - Pearl's Paradox #1
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Rule #58 |
No meritocracy ever survived a vote.
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Rule #59 |
Practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent.
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Rule #60 |
We hold these truths to be, like, duh.
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Rule #61 |
Your ear is brighter than your brain.
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Rule #62 |
Poetry bears repeating.
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Rule #63 |
Poetry used to be a challenge to write and easy to read. Now it's the opposite.
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Rule #64 |
As goes contemporary, so goes classical.
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Rule #65 |
Imagine how dull the world would be if you or I were the most interesting thing in it.
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Rule #66 |
Bad actors pause for breath. Good actors pause for thought.
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Rule #67 |
"Forgettable poetry" is an oxymoron.
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Rule #68 |
Trust your wings, not your perch.
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Rule #69 |
Poetry is an act of consumption, not production.
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Rule #70 |
There has never been a better time to be a bad poet,
never a worse time to be a good one.
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Rule #71 |
Poetry is about poems, not poets.
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Rule #72 |
Introducing your work as "poetry" is like a hunter firing off a warning shot.
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Rule #73 |
Those who believe in criticism without criticism
usually believe in poetry without poetry.
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Rule #74 |
Would you buy a car from someone whose sales pitch amounted to
an argument that the thing in front of you is, in fact, a car?
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Rule #75 |
We are just one great performer away from a renaissance.
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Rule #76 |
Good poetry is memorable. Great poetry is unforgettable.
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Rule #77 |
If you have to ask its meaning
a poem has already failed.
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Rule #78 |
If you have to tell me it's a poem it isn't.
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Rule #79 |
Novice poets don't have a style.
Experienced poets don't want one.
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Rule #80 |
You will learn more from the critique that you give than the critique you receive.
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Rule #81 |
Inspiration has a date of expiration.
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Rule #82 |
What trips off the tongue lands in our memory.
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Rule #83 |
One who compromises on wit becomes a half.
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Rule #84 |
Rehearse until it seems unrehearsed.
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Rule #85 |
Today, the poet with five readers can envy the exclusivity of the one with three.
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Rule #86 |
Bad poets may argue that words have no meaning. Theirs certainly don't.
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Rule #87 |
People reread stories because they forgot the words. People reread poetry because they remember them.
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Rule #88 |
If no one is in for a penny then no one is in for a pound.
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Rule #89 |
If you can't be famous be infamous.
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Rule #90 |
It is not the public's apathy we need to address first.
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Rule #91 |
We can sell crap to a lazy ignoramus. We can't sell crap by a lazy ignoramus.
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Rule #92 |
What can mean anything means nothing.
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Rule #93 |
Try not to blur the distinction between aesthetics and anaesthetics.
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Rule #94 |
Chris Richardson's American Ido effect: "Being bad includes not knowing you're bad."
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Rule #95 |
"Now that phone booths are gone will poets stop trying to fill them?"
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Rule #96 |
"Avant garde" is beyond pretentious. It is pretension itself.
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Rule #97 |
Don't ask what it means. Ask if and why it will be remembered.
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Rule #98 |
Authorial intent is to poetry what creationism is to science.
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Rule #99 |
The Bachmann Question: "How can we tell where the disingenuity ends and the stupidity begins?"
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Rule #100 |
We can work with the clueless. We can't work with the clueproof. (Be teachable.)
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Rule #101 |
Those who can't do...preach.
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Rule #102 |
What is fashionable can never be original.
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Rule #103 |
Poets not jealous of Maz have the most reason to be.
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Rule #104 |
Ignorance isn't the sin that laziness is.
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Rule #105 |
On Originality: The question isn't: "Have I seen this before?" The question is: "Do I want to see this again?"
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Rule #106 |
Shakespeare's Law: "If you don't know how poetry is performed you don't know how it is written."
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Rule #107 |
There are no rules, only tools and fools.
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Rule #108 |
People avoid today's poetry for the same reason psychotherapists charge money.
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Rule #109 |
I'm a big fan of my work. Sadly, others have better taste.
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Rule #110 |
In poetry, superfluous words are a crime. Superfluous modifiers are a felony.
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Rule #111 |
Do not confuse wilful ignorance and opinion.
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Rule #112 |
Anyone can be awful but if you want to be shockingly so you need to go first.
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Rule #113 |
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." - James D. Nicoll
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Rule #114 |
Nobody Reads Poetry
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Rule #115 |
There is no more certain proof that poetry
is dead than the need to deny it.
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Rule #116 |
While alive, poetry was art. Now it is religion.
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Rule #117 |
People don't call what they read "prose" and they don't read what we call "poetry".
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Rule #118 |
History is politics.
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Rule #119 |
[When writing...] Show, don't tell. [When performing...] Tell, don't show.
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Rule #120 |
Write for audiences, not readers.
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Rule #121 |
Common sense is not an open-book test.
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Rule #122 |
Poetry isn't what you write. It's what others remember hearing.
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Rule #123 |
Trying to sell poetry today is like trying to sell scripts in a civilization without theaters.
(Pssst! You have to build the theaters first.)
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Rule #124 |
What are you afraid of learning?
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Rule #125 |
Vicious cycle warning! Learning breeds curiosity. And vice versa.
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Rule #126 |
Poetry is an effect, not a cause, not an affect.
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Rule #127 |
A poem is rarely about its topic.
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Rule #128 |
Honesty is just a lack of imagination.
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Rule #129 |
Lies tell us twice as much as the truth.
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Rule #130 |
The wise learn more from fiction than fools from fact.
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Rule #131 |
"But what really pisses me off when you get right down to it, is the unmitigated gall of so many who post here...who have the patronizing, self-absorbed opinion that the person who critiques their poetry has not a clue, has never loved, has never grieved, has never existed in all of the frames they write so badly about. That (at the moment) is what really pisses me off." - Debi Zathan
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Rule #132 |
You don't have to be clever, just slightly less stupid than everyone else.
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Rule #133 |
Nothing good ever followed the words "Hold my beer and watch this!"
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Rule #134 |
News is what doesn't happen.
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Rule #135 |
If everything is art then nothing is art.
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Rule #136 |
How to read poetry: Rule #1: Don't. (Instead, listen to it.)
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Rule #137 |
"Poetry readings" is an oxymoron.
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Rule #138 |
The one lesson that can be learned only by reading poetry is that we should be listening to poetry.
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Rule #139 |
Mixing politics and art yields neither.
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Rule #140 |
Too much clarity has the same effect on pseudointellectuals as too much sunlight has on vampires.
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Rule #141 |
"...you wanted your poetry to move people...that's what escalators
are for, no?" - - Mary E. Hope
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Rule #142 |
Tell me the fable, not the moral.
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Rule #143 |
Common sense isn't just a myth. It's an oxymoron.
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Rule #144 |
Truth is the most effective lie.
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Rule #145 |
The story is the story.
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Rule #146 |
The teller is the story.
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Rule #147 |
You can't invent what you can't imagine.
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Rule #148 |
Quality is not a genre.
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Rule #149a |
When arts die they turn into hobbies. - Michael Lind
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Rule #149b |
When arts die they turn into lobbies. - Pearl Gray
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Rule #150 |
"Poetry is the original digital art; its audience tends to be in the digits." - Michael Lind
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Rule #151 |
Poetry ≠ Email From Rehab
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Rule #152 |
Why do you think teleprompters were invented?
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Rule #153 |
Prose is timely. Poetry is timeless.
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Rule #154 |
From childhood, humans are conditioned to fall asleep when you read to them.
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Rule #155 |
Poetry. It isn't just prose you agree with.
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Rule #156 |
Never accuse anyone of being a poet. They might know a lawyer.
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Rule #157 |
There is no such thing as a little candor.
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Rule #158 |
The Tsendoku Law: The number of poetry publications read is lower than the number sold.
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Rule #159 |
"Maybe it was a slow news day. Poetry has a lot of those."
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Rule #160 |
You can't sell books shorter than 25 words.
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Rule #161 |
"All a real editor needs is clean copy, dirty graphics, a nearby printing press and a corrupt janitor."
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Rule #162 |
Satire should be funny, not just silly.
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Rule #163 |
Poetry isn't homework.
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Rule #164 |
"Poetry is only as important as we are."
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Rule #165 |
Your greatest ability is your available.
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Rule #166 |
If the audience is not your first concern then you will be their last.
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Rule #167 |
Whether or not critique is constructive depends on how the author uses it, not on the manner in which it's phrased." - John Boddie (on Gazebo)
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Rule #168 |
Postmodernism is incoherent solipsism.
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Rule #169 |
"Write what you know. That should leave you with a lot of free time." - Howard Nemerov
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Rule #170 |
Better is different enough.
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Rule #171 |
The only thought more frightening than poetry being dead is the notion that this is poetry being alive.
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Rule #172 |
Most poetry isn't.
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Rule #173 |
Get better. Not bitter.
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Rule #174 |
"Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo." - Don Marquis
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Rule #175 |
Poetry's status quo: Those who perform cannot write; those who write cannot perform; those who learn cannot teach; and, those who teach cannot learn.
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Rule #176 |
Piracy is advertising.
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Rule #177 |
Poetry is the mathematics of language.
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Rule #178 |
If you can tell it's poetry it's not. - Pearl's Paradox #2
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Rule #179 |
The lack of an aesthetic is, itself, an aesthetic. - Pearl's Paradox #3
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Rule #180 |
People who finish every project don't conceive many.
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Rule #181 |
Shakespeare's Question: "'Pandering'? WTF do you think I was doing?"
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Rule #182 |
"Poetry is a well-planned accident." - Pearl's Paradox #4
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Rule #183 |
"If you're not careful... ...you might learn something here."
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Rule #184 |
Fools can be followed, forgotten or fleeced. (Choose wisely.)
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Rule #185 |
"The correct definition of a problem is its solution."
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Rule #186 |
So proud of their dizzy display as they prowl through this dark neighbourhood, these loud voices with nothing to say will all need to be misunderstood.
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Rule #187 |
"Art is our vanguard against the mundane, a tin foil umbrella against the insane."
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Rule #188 |
All good poetry is easy, the great stuff deceptively so.
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Rule #189 |
"If you have to tell me you are a poet you aren't." - Pearl's 5th paradox.
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Rule #190 |
Imagination is not imaginable.
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Rule #191 |
"Poems are elliptic, not cryptic."
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Rule #192 |
There is no river. Only currents.
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Rule #193 |
"A poem is a little machine for remembering itself." - Don Paterson
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Rule #194 |
Art is for strangers.
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Rule #195 |
The less horrified we are the more horrifying we become.
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Rule #196 |
"Critics who don't insult writers insult readers."
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Rule #197 |
Every guppy thinks itself a whale until it sees the ocean.
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Rule #198 |
The best way to slight one poet is to praise another.
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Rule #199 |
"I am not as good as I think I am." - Scavella's Mantra
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Rule #200 |
"There is no escape from metre; there is only mastery." - T.S. Eliot
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Rule #201 |
Accessibility is a club that the incoherent and the banal use to batter each other.
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Rule #202 |
Reading poetry is like tasting art.
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Rule #203 |
Pearl's 6th Paradox: The simpler the concept the smaller the number of poets who understand it.
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Rule #204 |
Poetry is defined by its reception, not its conception.
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