And then we do have some questions. There was one from someone named Garin Hill
asking, "If you aren't a poet, but were interested in getting started, how would you do that?" Oh well, you just have to read. It's really such dull advice, there's no key to it. You just have to read, poetry that is, for
10,000 hours. That's a good number that people use. I mean, if you're going to become proficient
at anything, like the cello, you would take cello lessons. If you wanted to be a sculptor, you would
take lessons in sculpture-making. You wouldn't just attack a piece of marble
with your bare hands and a screwdriver. Or these days it could pass for post-contemporary art. But you can just grab a pen and express yourself. You can't do that with a cello or a bassoon
or a piece of marble. So, the preparation to write poetry is really
a hidden one, and it really lies in the simple act of reading tons of poetry; and I mean,
not just stuff you find in magazines, but if you really want to be trained in poetry
you need to read Milton, you need to read "Paradise Lost," you need to read Wordsworth,
you need to read Wordsworth's "Prelude," big poems, the major stuff. So, eventually you kind of internalize the
rhythm of English verse. You start thinking iambically, not exactly
that you're writing formal verse, but you begin to think in the rhythms of English poetry. That's if you want to take it seriously. I mean, if you don't want to take it seriously
you can just get a 79-cent pen and express yourself. No one's going to read it with any pleasure
because you don't have the training. You haven't paid attention to
what's happened in the past. And you know how it is, if someone comes along
and they haven't bothered to check out the history of what they're into and they just
kind of announce themselves as if they discovered it, they really look like jackasses. So there's that risk also. So reading is, I'm afraid, the answer.
