What makes a poet?

Yesterday, a friend shared The Readers Almanac blog. The particular entry he was interested in - the one he knew I, and others would be interested in was a guest blog by poet Jim Moore. From his own experience, Moore answered the question, “What does it take to become a poet?” His response is as follows:


1. A broken heart

2. A sudden dislocation which results in you living in a new place, not really knowing why you are there.

3. A welcoming bookstore floor.

4. The luck of stumbling across a poet whose work seems written as if just for you; whose poems feel as if they are saving your life, stanza by blessed stanza.

I imagine that my friend could check off this list with his own versions of items 1-4, perhaps it is this list that attracted him to the blog in the first place. My initial reaction to Moore’s list was “Well, I’m screwed. Some of these don’t really apply to me. I guess I’m not a poet after all.” Then another of our friends who also received the link to this blog replied with his answers. Turns out his version of a broken heart wasn’t of the romantic variety and I know that although his decision to live in a new place was quite deliberate, it didn’t make the sense of not belonging any less. This morning, I decided to take another look at this list. Not because I believe Jim Moore has the magic recipe for becoming a successful poet, but because I believe that being able to tap into experiences and emotions and turn them into language is part of what makes a successful poet. Anyway, I began to reconsider these questions and I realize that by broadening the interpretation of Moore’s criteria, they each apply to me and likely most of my comrades.

1. My heart was indeed irreparably broken when my daddy died. I was seventeen

2. Still reeling from said broken heart, I left home to attend a college I selected on a whim (new place, no reason)

3. My bookstore floor was in fact my grandmother’s house where I discovered thick volumes of Whitman and Dickinson beneath her side tables and copies of a variety of “Best Loved” anthologies.

4. I didn’t meet the poet who changed my life, or at least my perspective, until many years later, but I did meet her, Mary Karr, and I realized that any set of life experiences, any set of beliefs would translate into successful poetry – my goal.

Perhaps, I am a poet after all (level of success to be determined).