Sturgeon's Law

Dave Mason gave me some good advice when I asked him about how to kickstart my poetry writing: review, review, review. I filed it away, but as soon as I started actually doing it, I realized how right he was. That's one of my big suggestions for young/moderate beginner poets: pick up books of contemporary poetry, especially ones you like, and write about a thousand words on what they're doing and how they're doing it. It's amazing how much doing so will help you learn about poetry in general, how it will augment your own writing strategies (even if you don't necessarily use the techniques you write about in a review), and how much literary journals will love you if you write articulate, insightful reviews they can publish. I've found it's often difficult as an editor to get reviews from people--it really shouldn't be.

Labels: poetry, reviews