Eighteen Reasons Not To Write Poetry

You’ll be judged by people who don’t know you;
you’ll be judged by people who do.
You’ll be competing with dead masters;
you’ll be competing with young rivals.
They serve food while you’re reading.
Somebody’s always trying to pick someone up — right at the climax!
During composition, the audience is invisible,
but when you’re reading from the page, you can’t make eye contact.
You know you’re going to have to revise.
Your poem will almost certainly be rejected.
It will be rejected for the most superficial, subjective reasons
by someone who can’t write one-tenth as well as you.
It will be rejected because the editor’s doing a special issue
for his friends and sycophants only.
It will be rejected because it’s totally retro and old-fashioned.
It will be rejected because it violates some obsolete taboo.
It will be too avant-garde to be appreciated.
It will lack appropriate formal qualities.
It will be way too formal for someone’s taste.
They published something just like it last month.

The poem appeared in Voices Israel 2005