Letters To a Young Poet. From a publicist.

Dear Sir,

You ask whether your verses are any good. It doesn’t matter. You are fated to become a blogger.

It seems to me that almost all our sadnesses arise from having to use the word tweet as a verb. Learn to ignore these sadnesses. After a descent into yourself and into your solitude, repeat after me: “I tweeted.”

And to speak of solitude again, never hire a publicist—especially if she says she’ll get you on Oprah. Just as people have had a wrong idea about the sun’s motion, they have the wrong idea about Oprah. Oprah doesn’t want your poems. Oprah doesn’t even want Stedman’s poems.

To let each impression and each embryo of a feeling come to completion, to embellish the names of various publications where reviews of your book appear, so Bomblog becomes Bomb magazine and The Examiner online is The San Francisco Examiner, this alone is what it means to live as an artist: in understanding as in creating.

Why should you want to give up a child’s wise not-understanding in exchange for snippet mentions on HTMLGiant? I don’t know why. But you must.

The thought of being a creator, of engendering, of shaping is nothing without the continuous great confirmation and embodiment in the world. The best thing that can happen to you as a young poet is for Tao Lin to turn you into a hamster. Do you hear me? Your other car is Tao Lin’s Tumblr.

Try to love the questions themselves. Ruminate on bit.ly.

While doubt can become a good quality if you train it, there is no time like a first book to really ham-it-up with your Jewiness. Go ahead. Jew up and Jew out.

As bees gather honey, National Poetry Month will never be considered breaking news. In this there is no measuring with time, a year doesn’t matter, and ten years are nothing.

We must accept our reality as vastly as we possibly can: people only want to talk about Sex and the City. You will have to pretend you don’t want to strychnine Carrie’s ginger-tamarind saketini if it means you’ll be on TV. This is in the end the only kind of courage that is required of us.

Yours,

Melissa