The most famous poets are not the most gifted, the most daring, or the most geniusy. Fame and poetry mix best through steady mediocrity, the creation of a “poetic voice” and a concrete underpinning of institutional power. You ought to write poems that scare or challenge no one, poems that are speckled with the kind of folksy charm people like in politicians. Be experimental in name only.

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Most poets in America have boring office jobs in which they are screwing around on the Internet most of the time. Just mention the names of as many contemporary poets as you can in all your blog posts. You will catch all the self-googlers self-googling. Self-promotion is the only kind of promotion left….there are two kinds of poets: those you’ve heard of and those you haven’t.

Wonderful post by bobulate on Lorrie Moore’s advice to writers: “First, try to be something, anything, else.”

Me, I tried being a writer, and then I drew when I didn’t want to write. And then when I didn’t want to draw, I wrote. And then, when I didn’t want to do either, I messed around with the internet. So finally I decided to put the three together.

What’s everyone doing right now that you think sucks? What’s in fashion in your arena that you think is stupid? What do you think has outlived its place in the spotlight? Then start defining yourself by opposing that thing.

Katharine Brooks, director of the liberal arts career center at the University of Texas, Austin, and author of “You Majored in What? Mapping Your Path From Chaos to Career”…she tries to establish the value of the liberal arts with a series of courses called “The Major in the Workplace.” Students draw what she calls a “major map,” an inventory of things they have learned to do around their major.

Geez, I feel so sorry for this woman working 13 hours a day and making $140,000/year off Etsy. Maybe she could work 6.5 hours a day and make $70,000/year? Did my fevered brain do that math right?

See also: Beware of Turning Hobbies Into Jobs

…these letters weren’t written for Karlin or anyone, but rather composed as a book at the suggestion of his other son, Max: “Why don’t you write something like Rilke’s ‘Letters to a Young Poet,’ but for illustrators?”

“Dear James” is, thankfully, nothing like Rilke’s book. Where Rilke, whom Blechman calls “that ultimate dandy,” constantly urges his pen pal poet to look “deep within” and shun outside opinion, Blechman advises young James to “meet people” and take all graphic work that comes his way: “I look forward to your next letter — and I want it written on Young & Rubicam letterhead.” Funny.

Blechman pooh-poohs the Rilkean test “Ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: Must I write?” and counters it by reeling off a list of artists who didn’t give up their day jobs: Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Anton Chekhov, Peter Paul Rubens. Yes, even the liveliest spirit, Blechman says, can be killed by “the grinding anxiety of worrying about when you’ll see your next check.”

Love this bit about constraint:

It’s tough work starting your own engine without an external push, and Blechman tells how other gentlemen have done it: by stroking red velvet (Wagner), “dipping feet into hot water (Turgenev), drinking noxious quantities of black coffee (Balzac) and smelling rotten apples (Schiller).” What’s Blechman’s poison prod? Boundaries. Tight deadlines. Little spaces. Before he does a spot drawing for a newspaper, he photocopies the whole page, leaving a blank space for his drawing. He likes the push and pull of terrible constraints.