Everywhere I travel I meet people who want to write
poetry but worry that what they write won’t be “any
good.” No one can judge the worth of a poem before it’s been
written, and setting high standards for yourself can keep you from writing.
And if you don’t write you’ll miss out on the pleasure of
making something from words, of seeing your thoughts on a page. Here Leslie
Monsour offers a concise snapshot of a self-censoring poet.
The Education of a Poet
Her pencil poised, she’s ready to create, Then listens to her mind’s perverse debate On whether what she does serves any use; And that is all she needs for an excuse To spend all afternoon and half the night Enjoying poems other people write.
Leslie Monsour’s newest book of poetry is The Alarming Beauty of the Sky (2005) published by Red Hen Press. Poem copyright © 2000 by Leslie
Monsour and reprinted from The Formalist, Vol. 11, by permission of the author. This weekly
column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and
the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This
column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
This article appears in Jun 8-14, 2006.
