Monthly Archives: December 2018

17 posts

A Brief New Year’s Message (2019 Vintage)

blathering comma mine Lost Sherpa of Happiness poetry

2019

Just like that, another year gone. Here’s weird: I just reread last year’s New Year’s post and nothing, I mean nothing, seems dated, so you can ignore the “Best by Such and Such Date” imprint on it (and don’t you just love ignoring stuff?).

What does the heartiness of a year-old post proves? Once more, in the words of the prophet, this precept: “The more things don’t change, the more they stay the same.”

This year I’ll cut to the quick and thank that hardy little band of readers — including YOU if your eyes just grazed these words — this website enjoys.

As is true with poems, what good are posts you write if no one reads them? Without readers, poems and posts become the proverbial tree falling in the wilderness, not knowing if it makes a noise or not.

treefelling

The one resolution from last year I’m still wrestling with like Jacob vs. the Angel? Marketing strategies for my poetry. But that’s another post that I don’t want to wrestle with On the Eve (Turgenev titles for $500, Alex!).

So let’s keep it simple: Happy New Year in all virtual sincerity. Thanks for reading and learning with me.

And to those who have given the Amazon sales figures for Lost Sherpa of Happiness a mighty bump (amazing how one purchase rockets the numbers up briefly), a bigger thank you still for putting your heart where the arts are and your faith where my ability to write something you can connect with is.

It keeps me going, both the poetry and this “Updates on a Free-Verse Life” website. Against all odds (and, on bad days, all evens, too).

Enjoy and be safe!

fireworks

New Year's Day message

2018: The Year in Poetry Books

poetry poetry books

At the beginning of 2018, I vowed to become more well-read in poetry books, both classic and contemporary. Probably I did better in contemporary, if only because it is more fluid with free verse than the more form-conscious classics.

For those interested in similar vows for 2019, here’s a list of my 2018 poetry book reviews on Goodreads, listed chronologically from January (total: 36 plus one constantly-critical reread). If interested in possibly reading any on the list, give it a click and you’ll be down that good rabbit hole:

Why Do You Write? Seven Reasons

poetry poetry journals writing inspiration

It was good to receive the holiday Poets & Writers “Inspiration Issue,” which includes inspiring interviews with seven established poets, none of whom look anything like me (instead, I sadly look like the Powers-That-Be I loathe in Washington Swamp. C., making me feel like an Ugly Duckling on the Good Pond Poetry, one who can only evolve in one way—talent).

Although there are many cool questions with cooler-still answers in these interviews, I’ll give you a sampling by sharing responses to the eternal question: “Why do you write?”

Sally Wen Mao: “I write in order to live; to be sane in this world; to expand my own ideas of what’s possible; for the girl inside me who did not believe she was valuable; for the woman inside me who trivializes her own pain; for all the living people, especially women of color, who feel the same way; to rail against silence and erasure; to center my own narrative; to recover history; to imagine a future; to record and witness the present; to tell the truth.”

Editor’s Note: This reminds me of essay tests I took in U.S. History senior year. When I wasn’t quite sure which answer was best, I put some semicolons to work and gave them all! Still, I’m pretty sure Sally’s answer speaks for many in today’s swampy climate (allusion to Washington Swamp C. and its head crocodile here).

Hanif Abdurraqib: (Hanif did not answer this specific question, so I’ll share his answer to “Who do you turn to when you feel like you’re losing faith?“): “I’m finding faith in writers who at least attempt to engage with a complicated honesty. I’m into writers who ask and answer with confidence, fully understanding that none of us really know shit.”

Editor’s Note: I love that answer, because Hanif fully understands what none of us fully understands. That can’t be said of some of the self-important writers out there, now can it?

Morgan Parker: “To explain myself.”

Editor’s Note: Boy, would E. B. White and his teacher, Mr. Strunk, love this succinct answer! Well done, Morgan!

Esmé Weijun Wang: “It’s the best way I’ve found to interpret the bewildering world.”

Editor’s Note: “Second place in the succinct sweepstakes!”

Ross Gay: “I write because I have questions; because I love books; I love the human voice; others have been so kind as to have written things I have been moved by and feel compelled to talk with; I like to talk with; I like to move; it is so fun; semicolons; the mysteries.”

Editor’s Note: Ross appears to be in on Semicolon Humor (it was once an ice cream franchise, no?). He’s also in on something I read about somewhere, but forget where: All writing is a dialogue with all writings that came before it. It’s as if we’re all at a big table with the masters, jockeying for seats near our favorites (I’m between Twain and Tolstoy), politely saying, “Pass the Plato of potatoes, please.”

Yiyun Li: “I would feel awfully lonely if I stopped.”

Editor’s Note: This sentiment makes sense when you receive occasional acceptances in your inbox. For the forever-rejected writers, however, their loneliness lives on, even as they continue to write. (As Head Swamp Crocodile once tweeted: “Sad!”)

Chigozie Obioma: “I write to redeem myself from the intrinsic pain that comes from trying to unravel the mystery of existence and, by doing so, to help others unpack theirs.”

Editor’s Note: I never considered that the mysteries of existence might be something in my Samsonite between socks and underwear, but it’s a rather cool image! Be careful with that luggage, kind sir!

And so, gentle reader, in seven semicolons or less, why do you write?

“Navel-Gazing” and Other Writing Hazards: Interview with a Poetry Editor

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Today, in our last entry before Christmas, we share the partial transcript of an interview conducted with the editor of a small poetry journal. This excerpt focuses on the controversial concept of “navel-gazing.”

KC stands for this website, as in some writer looking suspiciously like me conducting an interview. PE stands for physical education. (No, wait! Poetry Editor, I mean!)

KC: So how much reading do poetry editors and readers get done this time of year?

PE: That depends, but for the most part, very little. Poetry editors are people, too. We’re not Bob Cratchit at a desk wearing fingerless gloves as we pore over bad poetry, feeding it to some cold fire turned roaring. We have families, too. And the Ghost of Shopping Future to attend to.

KC: Good one. Why, then, does it “depend”?

PE: Because some journals are in such deep holes with their to-be-read piles that they use so-called “free time” to catch up. Thus is a misnomer born.

KC: I’m not sure I’d want my work to be read during “free time” like that. I suspect Mr. Poetry Cratchit might be a tad grouchy like his boss.

PE: (Laughs) Well, maybe so, maybe so. Kind of like the way we used to insist certain teachers didn’t “like us” and therefore looked at all our work through some red ink darkly.

KC: Nice allusion. But I’ve been meaning to ask you about something of great interest to poets. Navel-gazing.

PE: Oh, no. Anything but that!

KC: Yes. Lint and all. Poets are constantly warned off self-obsession and treating on topics of little interest to the masses and much interest to themselves. But I’m unclear about the border between such outlying provinces. Is not the human condition universal?

PE: Of course it is and of course that’s true, but you have to go with your gut. Belly-button poetry, as I call it, announces itself quite well. Have you ever been at a party with people who never ask questions, never stop talking to listen, and just go on and on about themselves and their jobs and their health concerns and their children and — God save us — their pets? It’s a torture most exquisite. It should be banned by the Geneva Convention, but isn’t deemed worthy.

KC: Wait a minute. Are you describing Facebook or poetry writing?

PE: (Wagging his finger) Such a wise one. Is your name Melchior, then?

KC: So why can’t a poem about Fido appeal to that huge market out there known as poetry readers who own dogs?

PE: It’s not so much the what as the how. How do you go about it? Belly-button poetry can be killed one if by specifics and two if by abstractions. Too much of your particular pooch and his particular idiosyncrasies and readers will be “hash-tag who cares?” And, on the other hand, too much canine cliché and the reader will be bored by line three. Overly warmed by dryer lint and sleepy with ennui.

KC: Ah, I think I get it. The advantage seems to go, in this day and age, to political poetry and to societal poetry. Can one navel-gaze on that front, too?

PE: Yes. Navel-gazing is an equal-opportunity art killer. The poem must speak to the universal human experience in a most particular way. The particular way, however, cannot be a boring way. True, it may be informed by experience and usually is, but it’s all about the vehicle.

KC: “To a Buick Skylark,” you’re telling us?

PE: Ha! You’re showing your age there! Buick Skylarks went out of production just before the century flipped. I’m sure Percy Bysshe Shelley appreciates the allusion, though.

KC: So what might be your advice on the navel-gazing front? Something useful for our readers on this site….

PE: Stop thinking about yourself so much. Turn the ego loose for a few hours, like a kid going outside to play in the 60s. Out of sight but not out of mind. Observe the world around you and write about it. See the ordinary in extraordinary ways. Keep your sense of humor and creative play nearby. Experiment. Read other poets’ work religiously. Read a wide swath of poetry journals religiously. Write the equivalent of questions. Write the equivalent of listening and report it objectively and faithfully. And if you’re going to navel-gaze, for God’s sake do it without being obvious. Perhaps it’s helpful to consider the world and the people around you as belly buttons. Gaze there and reflect on that in your own signature way through your own voice. Does that help?

KC: It’s a frightening image, actually.

PE: Narrative poetry, too. Humans are hardwired for stories, even yours if they are attached to meaning and universal truths that will have readers nodding their heads and connecting in their own ways. When the “I” in your first-person poems becomes the “I” for readers, you’ve pulled it off. Your “I” is their “I,” and no one’s the wiser—all while your poem “teaches” in its subtle ways. I know this is not exactly helpful, but it’s salutary to just consider the whole idea of self-obsession before writing. Some writers won’t even go that far. They are just writing for the self, for their own ego’s self-massaging. And finally, I would advise that you share drafts with people you trust. Not boiler-plate rejecting editors like me, but people who don’t pull punches, who traffic in “tough love,” which is something every new poem needs.

KC: Tough love and gut punches. Right in the button de belly?

PE: You got it. Punches to the poem’s solar plexus. Punches that feel painfully good, once the soreness wears off.

KC: Thanks for sharing your wisdom, sir. A merry and a happy to you and yours!

PE: Thank you!

Random Thoughts, December Edition

blathering comma mine humor opinion poetry poetry books random thoughts

With the Winter Solstice now securely in the rearview mirror, people can take good cheer: The days are getting longer! (Not that anyone notices at this hectic time of year.)
Here in New England, the Solstice was celebrated with sheets of rain and pillowcases of wind, temps in the 60s Fahrenheit. All fore of our fathers would shake their heads in disbelief. They remember when “winter was winter” in New England and you walked to school through six feet of snow, uphill both ways.
But there’s no global warming, oh no. How do I know? The scientists in the White House told me so.
Speaking of, I know of one chimney Santa is taking a pass on (shades of “The Madness of King George”).
Wait a minute. Three days till Christmas? OK, then. I can finally listen to Christmas carols. Turned them on just now by clicking iTunes and the first song I heard was Judy Collins’ “The Little Road to Bethlehem.”
Let’s just say I could listen to Judy’s voice from here to eternity.
And wait a minute. Do I actually have to start wrapping gifts? I met a lady last week who sneered at the whole concept. “I put things in gift bags now,” she sniffed. “Buy them marked down after Christmas every year.”
Who says “bag lady” has a negative connotation?
Yes, a lot of poetry books on the Christmas wish list this year, but new books are always a minefield, in poetry especially.
Just read a review of a book about books, Elisa Gabbert’s The Word Pretty, and there was an excerpt about judging books by their covers and their titles. Raise your hand if guilty until proven innocent.
You there! Raise your hand, in the name of that endangered species “honesty”!
(Oops. I’m back to a certain chimney, aren’t I….)
Anyway, back to Elisa Gabbert (who is also a poet). She opined that the best titles are spondees like Bleak House and White Noise and Jane Eyre.
What’s a spondee, you respondee? “A poetic foot consisting of two equally accented syllables, as in daylight and nightfall,” according to Edward Hirsch’s resource, A Poet’s Glossary (buy it and you, too, can be a poet!).
It all has to do with Lovely Rita, Meter Maid or something. Back to Hirsch: “The meter of a poem can slow us down or speed us up; it can focus our attention; it can hypnotize us.” He then compares it to ocean waves. You know. The things you stare at when you need to be mesmerized but good because the cruel world is bullying you.
Then there’s anapest, which is always anapestering spondees by one-upping them. Three syllables this time, “two unaccented followed by one accented, as in the words in a war” (accent on WAR, as you would expect from this world).
Do you know any poets who get into meter and form poems in a big way? Me, too (a spondee, you see?).
It’s like those English majors who love diagramming sentences. Math majors in English majors’ clothing, I call them.
I don’t know about your house, but every time I walk through the TV room, my wife is watching Hallmark movies. Like mac and cheese, they’re the comfort food of television viewers.
I lay blame at that big white chimney again. Pay too much attention to the news and you’ll be on lines of Hallmark, too.
“This is your brain on escapism…” (cue image of egg frying in pan).
Speaking of front page news, I see the U.S. government has been shut down because Mexico refuses to pay for someone else’s wall. Come on, chicos. Make Mexico Great Again!
If you could take only one book of poems to a deserted (except for singular book) island, which book would it be? No cheating now. I see that collected Shakespeare’s Complete Plays you’re packing!
Some people in these parts are bummed because we will be missing yet another White Christmas. I suggest we petition Congress to move the holiday to Feb. 25th, when white is more likely to have your back.
You laugh, but Congress messes with time zones, so why not calendars?
If you haven’t seen it, I leave you with Saturday Night Live’s true-to-life skit, “Best Christmas Ever.”
Now you go out and have a best Christmas ever, too. And if you don’t “do” Christmas for non- or alternative religious reasons, just have a good 25 December, won’t you? You deserve it!

Readers’ Choices (Which Are Seldom Writers’ Choices)

Lost Sherpa of Happiness poetry

dentist

We’ve been talking a lot lately about how difficult it is to discern good from bad when it comes to that slippery seal known as poetry. You need no better proof than to listen to readers of your own books, who will often point out favorite poems that wouldn’t even make your Top Ten.

You should know, no? After all, you are Mr. Poetry Expert and author of the book (the equivalent of “God” in the world of your manuscript).

Here’s one example of a surprise readers’ pick from Lost Sherpa of Happiness. It’s a poem about going to the dentist to have cavities drilled as a kid. This poem was a bear to write, and often poems that give us fits and become “projects” remain “problem children” to the end. Maybe authors hold a grudge.

But, in this case, more than one reader has liked it, to which I say every time, “Really? That one?” Let’s give it a go:

In the Dentist’s Killing Fields

In the fluoride-free days of the 60s, a boy’s
tooth nerves were fair game. The weight of a dentist’s
waiting room meant something.

Four beige walls, stoic chairs, pictures
of wildflowers and bees. My feet tiny
clouds over the carpeted ground, I could hear
hunger with the mechanical whine of the dentist’s drill:
the room with the white porcelain vortex of water,
the explorers and probes, excavators and extractors.
And, poised above all, the silver praying mantis maneuvering
its spike in and out of a victim’s head.
Biting. Spitting. Chewing at its leisure.

The sound sprayed chills across my skin, recalling
past molar trenchings, enamel and bone and saliva popping
effervescence over chin and paper bib.

I tried distracting myself with the shiny-edged page on my lap.
Highlights for Children: the cartoon morality plays,
the black on white antithesis of Goofus inflicted on Gallant.

I tried watching traffic on Center Street; the constellations
of cars and trucks and buses rolling to the stop light outside
the office window: pausing, glinting sunlight, accelerating
escapes. Green, yellow, red, green. An old man in fedora, smoking
in his Studebaker; a family laughing in the cavity
of their Impala; a couple stiff as mannequins modeling for Ford.

A woman behind me said, “Kenneth?” nicely, and I glanced
at my father, who refused to look up, flipping his
Field & Stream. The voice led me back to the doctor’s.
The meadow of metal. The plastic shell of slippery chair.
The mantis shadows behind an insect eye of light,
tilting and curious about its next mouth.

Last memory: hearing the gurgling, feeling the sucking hook
snag my lip. “Here’s a brave young man,” Dr. Hebert said, pulling
up his plate of point and pick. “Let’s have a look, shall we?”
He donned a mask beneath the fly facets
of his coke-bottle glasses. He leaned heavily into the light.

Perhaps the poem is helped as much by shared experience and knowing nods as it is by merit. Perhaps it is the way simple tools and machinery come to life.

In any event, I’ll take it, because no poet turns away a compliment. And anything that makes the memory of dentists less traumatic can’t be a bad thing.

No, it’s a good thing. How do I know? More than one reader has said so!

Salad Days for Poetry: They’ve Arrived

poetry

salad

As Shakespeare would say (and did in Act I, Scene 5, of his 1606 play, Antony & Cleopatra) these are “salad days” for poetry.

No, he didn’t mention the poetry part, just the salad days part, through the mouth of the beautiful Cleopatra reminiscing about her foolish, younger (read: greener) days.

Over time the foolish part has fallen off the salad, leaving the younger part, so “salad days” (the green of youth, which we have a tendency to worship) now indicate a good thing.

The New York Times Magazine, a Sunday staple in this house, is an example of salad days for poetry, but it’s not the only evidence to be seen. The poetry renaissance is partly due to political events in the U.S. Political poetry, once frowned upon, is very much in style these days. And the voices of minority poets have flourished in recent years thanks to the oppressive policies of the very vanilla and very wealthy powers-that-be.

But back to the Times Magazine. For over three years now they’ve been publishing poetry. One poem a week. Formerly curated by Terrance Hayes, Natasha Tretheway, and Matthew Zapruder, the honor is now Rita Dove’s, who recently assumed the title of “Poetry Editor.”

It’s viewable on-line in the Magazine section. Check it out Sundays. This week’s entry, about a couple in the Puerto Rican countryside, reads like a side of salad. It’s written by the very cooly named poet Blas Falconer. I leave the dressing to you:

“A man and a woman touched”
by Blas Falconer

at night under stairs,
pinball machines ringing, and,
Sundays, he drove her to

the springs of Coamo, the chapel of
San Germán. Had she ever known
happiness? The road
littered with mangos seemed

to go on
forever. She thought,
The people can’t eat

them fast enough,
as if she were not
one of those people.

Ah, love and sadness. And mangos. And salad days growing exactly where you want them—in as many broad circulation periodicals as possible.

T. G. I. M., people. Greens are good for you. And all of us. Even very vanilla and very wealthy powers-that-be, if only they’d partake.

***

There’s still time before Christmas! Give a little salad to a language lover you know!

Things That Go Bump in the Night

poetry

bed

Remember when you were a kid, alone in bed, sleepless with ears attuned to every terror unknown to man—the things that go bump in the night, hide under the bed, favor the confines of the closet in your room?

Laughable, now, but honestly, do you ever truly shed your fears? I am reading Michael Pollan’s new book, How To Change Your Mind, and it includes a quote from some expert or other on psychology (sorry, can’t find the page and name at the moment) who declares that humans fear three things in the course of their lives: death, other humans, and their own brains.

I’m here to talk about our own brains. Like the Internet, they giveth and they taketh away. For poets, the brain is a source of imagination, creativity, and art. But the brain can also play Mr. Hyde, becoming the source of imagination, creativity, and fear (which, like yeast on sugar, feeds on the first two).

In the poem “Nights Our House Comes to Life” by Matthew Brennan, we see how some things continue to go bump in the night, even for adults, even for the “mature,” even for the even-keeled who know better but cannot fully silence their inner child:

“Nights Our House Comes to Life”
by Matthew Brennan

Some nights in midwinter when the creek clogs
With ice and the spines of fir trees stiffen
Under a blank, frozen sky,
On these nights our house comes to life.
It happens when you’re half asleep:
A sudden crack, a fractured dream, you bolting
Upright—but all you can hear is the clock
Your great-grandfather found in 1860
And smuggled here from Dublin for his future bride,
A being as unknown to him then as she is now
To you, a being as distant as the strangers
Who built this house, and died in this room
Some cold, still night, like tonight,
When all that was heard were the rhythmic clicks
Of a pendulum, and something, barely audible,
Moving on the dark landing of the attic stairs.

Brennan admits what many of us refuse to: that the outer world remains populated with our own imaginations. The characters may change, but the basic process is the same. It’s why my mother insists that she is one of that special breed of people who can see ghosts, and not always friendly ones, either. It’s how our knowledge of a home’s history can help write narratives of the night that might disturb sleep.

And, as we get older and begin to close the circle on the nights of our childhood, it’s why we can never underestimate the power of the mind and its ability to go rogue, playfully or no.

Sleep well, children!

"Nights Our House Comes to Life" Matthew Brennan

I Give Up

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It’s well-known that poets are blind when it comes to their own poetry. They can’t tell good from bad because they’re married to it. But what about major-league poets’ poetry? When you can’t tell good from bad there, you’re in a world of trouble.

Or maybe that’s the nature of poetry.

For Exhibit A, we go to the loftily-glossy pages of that venerable old war horse, The Atlantic. It’s a terrific periodical and money well spent as far as this subscriber is concerned, but their selections for poetry often leave me scratching my head.

In the new January/February issue, we have this entry, a found poem by Elizabeth Spires:

“How To Sing”
by Elizabeth Spires

from a hymnal

Moderately
Moderately slow
Moderately fast
With vigor
In flowing style
Boldly
Well marked
Fervently
With dignity
With great dignity
Joyously
Joyously, but not too fast
Resolutely
With stately vigor
Rather slowly
Not too slowly
Majestically
With joyous dignity
With movement
With flow

First of all, my cardinal rule in this column is not to dis fellow poets. I know a glass house when I see one! And I’ve read very little of Spires’ work, so I’m not here to judge her. In fact, this moves me to read more of her work because I know she must be a talented poet. And Elizabeth, honest, I’m happy for you and congratulate you!

My point, rather, is to wonder in a more abstract way (my default, turns out). What is good poetry? What is bad poetry? What makes an editor accept a poem? What makes her reject one?

I hereby give up.

Why? Because I have just gone through my third manuscript of poems and cleared out poems that don’t quite cut it. I put them in a new file called “The Isle of Misfit Poems.” (That’s for you, Rudolph! That’s for you!).

And, in all honesty, if “How To Sing” were in my work-in-progress, it would have been one I culled for the dreaded Isle.

Why? Because I feel 99.9% sure that, were I to submit the same poem under my own name (illegal in 50 states, so don’t try this at home!) to 100 tough poetry markets, I would garner 100 rejections.

This means something, but what? Something about the poem? Something about the market? Something about me? Does the emperor have no clothes here, or am I missing something magical about this hymnal-inspired piece that cashed in from the coffers of a major market due to my own feral upbringing in literature?

Hell, I once submitted to The Atlantic and never even heard back from them, even when I followed up with queries. You might cancel your subscription for that alone, but like I said, I genuinely enjoy the journalism in this magazine, so I just shrug and go on.

I know, I know. This phenomenon is not news or particularly revelatory. But it accentuates our own confusion as poets sending work out. Some of our stuff we consider pretty damn good. Some of it we are more than convinced will be snapped up by a market quickly. But no.

And then, for the hell of it, we sometime submit stuff we feel “meh” about and have little hope of selling. Then it gets accepted.

Can you figure this out? I certainly can’t. I officially give up.

The Atlantic magazine poetry

11 Habits Every Writer Should Keep

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habit

Today’s entry comes from the vaults. No, not the Montresor’s (Poe fans will get it), but this blog’s (equally dusty). WordPress informs me that I now have more readers (14) than I did the year I started “Updates on a Free-Verse Life” (two–me and my dog, who was forced to read it in exchange for a “Bark Less, Wag More” cookie).

That was April of 2016, when I shared 11 habits every writer should keep by looking at a list of wisdom I’d heard from sages through the ages, then commenting (as is my wont) on them.

If you’re not the type to dumpster-dive in a blog archive (and how rare is THAT blood type?), here it is again:

As is true with most things in life, there’s no shortage of advice when it comes to writing poetry. Don’t consider the source, though. Advisors are seldom names you will find in the poetry aisle. (Well, if poetry even had its own aisle, that is. It’s more likely wedged between Romance and Manga.)

In truth, books about writing are like the “self-help” aisle, which by now probably has a more euphemistic name like “pre-owned cars.” Think about it. The guy who writes a book called “How To Be a Millionaire” wouldn’t have to slog through the writing of such a book if he heeded his own advice, right?

So, without further ado, some advice I’ve heard over the years and my reactions:

Write every day. My first thought is, “Really?” But then I remember that people get distracted. For me, writing is more fun than talking and listening, those staples of the daily sensory diet, but maybe I am in the minority (again). Thus, this is preaching to the choir (though I promise not to sing).
Read every day. Hoo, boy. Stick it in Aisle Obvious. If you are not going to learn how to do it from the masters and your published contemporaries (or even how not to do it from poems you read and regret reading), then get out of Dodge. Sooner rather than later.
Keep a notebook. Easy. Check my notebook shelves (once called “bookshelves”).
No, Fool. Carry a notebook, I mean. To write ideas as they come to you. Oh. This pearl of wisdom for a guy who doesn’t even carry change or a wallet in his pocket? And what about those ideas in the shower? Or ideas jogged loose during a run? For me, all that blood flow and jostling of gray matter stirs up ideas, but I can barely breathe, never mind jot notes. This forces me to memorize the ideas as I run or shower like they’re already a poem. A Frost poem. You know. A “Whose Ideas These Are, I Think I Know” poem.
Copy by hand the poems you love. The ones by the greats or the contemporaries you love. Wait. Aren’t there lawyers for this? Kidding. I myself would be honored if someone (other than my dog, who gives me paws) hand-wrote a poem from one of my books into their journal.
Take chances. Live outside the box. I haven’t slept in the back yard for years, so, in a word: No. But I am willing to take chances on a 5-star hotel!
Let poems sit for awhile after you write them. I get a lot of help with this one from poetry journal editors. They let my poems sit for six to sixteen months, then send form e-mails asking about my day job. (Editor’s Note: A bit wiser today, I can say that these e-mails seldom get as far as a poetry journal’s editor. Thanks to the 3.7 ka-jillion people sending in poetry, it is more likely returned a year later by a “reader” who’s looking at her cellphone between stanzas.)
Cut to the bone. As long as your knife is metaphorical, sound advice. Especially for wordy sorts who jay walk across busy streets of diction.
Never write a poem about dogs. It’s a four-legged cliché. Whenever I hear “never” followed by subject matter, it’s open season on writing about that subject matter. Never tell me never. I’m like a kid. Try reverse psychology or something. I’m easy to trick: e.g. “Ken, never write about the Reformation in 16th-Century Germany.”
Market your poems. It’s just as important as writing them. And a logistical nightmare, too! And a pain in the ass, too! And a slow-death-by-$3-fee, too!
When some editor says, “Close call. Try us again,” try them again. See nightmare comma logistical above. Or get yourself a secretary. I hear dogs’ rates are cheap.

See? Memory Lane isn’t as far a walk as you thought. Of course, it helps when someone teleports you there.

You’re welcome. And Happy Thor’s Day. Now grab that poetic hammer and start pounding those habits….