Some well-known poet, whose name escapes me at the moment, once wrote (I am paraphrasing):
"A poet should write at least one poem a day."
Let me just tell you how foolish that prescription sounds.
I think the poet was confused and meant to apply his theory to sex, to eating or something...certainly not poetry.
In my opinion, writing one poem, story, or painting...one of anything per day is not the way to approach creativity and certainly will not produce anything great.
Poetry is based upon instinct, inspiration and guts.
Instinct will help you distinguish what you know is good and what is simply "bad."
My definition of bad poetry is that which doesn't say anything, doesn't challenge, doesn't expand the reader's, nor the poet's mind.
It's the mainstream stuff that's box-office hit one day and forgotten the next.

Inspiration is that which led you to write in the first place.
You had to write.
You have no choice about it or you would go mad.
Then when you do create, you still go mad because you find yourself despairing over your work needlessly, wringing your hands over each word or line.
Long after the poem has ceased to torment you, you can't remember why you were so in love with it.
Poetry is a love affair.
Now imagine writing one poem a day like having one lover per day.
We're poets, not whores!
But we could write five or six in one day when the inspiration hits us; or write none for years.
It's just the way it happens when inspiration strikes.

Guts is the "tongue in cheek," the chances you take of alienating editors, even readers to say something in you that you feel needs to be said.
But you have to be frightfully honest with your work.
That no unnecessary rhyme, clever wording, tinsel imageries...poetic devices were employed to "sell" the poem.
Readers deserve more than the glitz, more than the sermon.
They deserve the Psalms.
A poem should "haunt" the reader long after the poet has passed on.
The poet does not matter.
Only his or her words matter.
However, the words have to be written in such a manner that they can be accessible, tangible to the reader.

You have to have guts, but don't expect any glory from it.
Expect the tomatoes flying in your face once in awhile thrown by the moron who can't even walk a straight line let alone write one line of verse.
I don't know where they come from, but like Cate Compton, the editor of AtomicPetals, (an online poetry journal) wrote, "If you are offended by the free expression of ideas, think that Huck Finn and the like ought to be banned from public schools, use cute little euphemisms for particular parts of your body because you can't bring yourself to talk like a grown-up, or have an overly developed sense of what "sin" is and think everyone who doesn't go to your church is going to hell...please, for gawd's sake, turn around!
Oh, yeah,
and don't breed."

On that note, I shall end with encouragement.
Just write and don't listen to anyone except yourself.
Write what's in your heart.
Trite, but the most honest advice I can really give.

Essay by Mia
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