How to become a poet

Can you learn to write poems people want to read? I decided to find out

John Keats waits for the online meeting to starts

In a short story called “Career Move”, Martin Amis  imagined a  world where the accepted literary norms have been upended. Writers of screenplays are forced to scrap around for a living, publishing their efforts in small magazines which are read, if at all, by a few family members and long-suffering friends. The giant publishing houses, meanwhile, lavish their attention and huge expense accounts on poets.

If only. 

That said, puny pecuniary returns and meager succès d'estime seem no deterrence to those whose ambition is to see their verse in print. Full disclosure, I belong in the ranks. I have written poetry on and off since adolescence.  Over the years my poetry has been rejected by some of the most prestigious titles on both sides of the Atlantic. 

So when I spotted a monthly online poetry mentoring course offered by Out-Spoken Press, I was intrigued.