Sturgeon's Law

that is a really good idea.

you could perhaps *pretend* that you did such a thing, and then publish a book like "the best of" the poet-advice column answers.
 

Dude. Steven. That's an awesome idea. Why not set up a blogspace where people can ask you questions, and go for it? And then do what Jessica said, which is also awesome?

Hell, you could set it up as a team blog, if you like. Or a new kind of journal: ten poets per month will answer your questions, etc.

Dude. I can't wait to see this happen.
 

Yeah, I think it's a good idea, but there are just so many different ways to approach it and so many logistical questions that I'm not quite sure how I want to start yet...
 

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That's the coolest thing I've ever heard. I was the gossip/advice columnist of my junior high newspaper. I totally want to ask people like Bob Hicok, "on which side of the plate do I place the knife?" and "My aunt wrote me out of her will, now what?" Awesome!
 

Bob Hicok doesn't need a knife. His food cuts itself up for him.
 

I've read that the Persian epic poem the Shah-Nama (there may be other spellings in the Roman alphabet -- the original of course is in Persian) has long been used as a sort of daily divining method. People open the book to a random page, and read a few lines or a section of the poem, and take the reading as a kind of oracle to go through the day with.

Bibliomancy -- the practice of divining by opening a book to a random page and reading it for signs or advice. (I first found the term "bibliomancy" in one of Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet books when I read them a number of years ago.)

I suppose the I Ching would a similar sort of thing, although the method of deciding which page to read is more involved (sorting yarrow stalks or tossing coins).

An advice column by a poet. The possibilities are frightening. :-)
 

Canadian poet/medical illustrator Sherwin Tjia wrote a book of more than a thousand pseudo-haiku. His personal copy has one haiku per page. When giving readings, he takes questions from the audience and answers them by flipping to some random page/haiku he's written. And the haiku tends to answer the question. Not in the generic "wait, isn't this the same fortune I got in that last damn fortune cookie?" sort of way, but in the way of awesome.