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Advice to a Younger Writer
is have only one teacher. Absorb
the mahatmas but also study
an occasional banana split.
Smoking is too expensive, but
if you have to suckle a cigarette
don’t do it in elevators.
Never forget the ancient world
was bigger than Homer ever dreamed
and they did more than eat lotus in Egypt.
Be a writer and never stop
shaking it to some silly pop song.
If what you’re attempting is
out of fashion, you might be on to something.
But then again…
Be patient with yourself—
it takes a lifetime
to make all the essential mistakes.
Fall in love with art
but remember you can’t sleep with it.
Avoid getting tangled up
with turtles, chameleons, and pythons.
Try everything but pay attention
to what it does to you.
Being a writer is no better or worse
than slinging garbage cans or writing legal briefs,
it just happens to be what you do best.
Self-destructiveness is beguiling
only in geniuses already dead.
There’s no one exactly like you
but you can be happy
a mere fraction of the time.
If you continue writing,
and improve year after year,
your family will never realize it.
Friends will get sick of buying your books
but audience members will develop crushes on you that last
only as long as you’re reading to them.
Make sure they match—
your socks and your metaphors.
You can do anything
as long as you can still see your own work
like someone who’s never met you.
And don’t get so original you leave out the schmaltz. .
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