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Column 061

The Education of a Poet

Intro by Ted Kooser
05.31.2006

Every­where I trav­el I meet peo­ple who want to write poet­ry but wor­ry that what they write won’t be ​“any good.” No one can judge the worth of a poem before it’s been writ­ten, and set­ting high stan­dards for your­self can keep you from writ­ing. And if you don’t write you’ll miss out on the plea­sure of mak­ing some­thing from words, of see­ing your thoughts on a page. Here Leslie Mon­sour offers a con­cise snap­shot of a self-cen­sor­ing poet. 

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The Education of a Poet

By Leslie Monsour
Her pencil poised, she's ready to create,
Then listens to her mind's perverse debate
On whether what she does serves any use;
And that is all she needs for an excuse
To spend all afternoon and half the night
Enjoying poems other people write.

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Disclaimer

We do not accept unsolicited submissions

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Leslie Monsour’s newest book of poetry is The Alarming Beauty of the Sky (2005) published by Red Hen Press. Poem copyright © 2000 by Leslie Monsour and reprinted from The Formalist, Vol. 11, by permission of the author. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.

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