[New-Poetry] so you want to be a writer? by Charles Bukowski

[Chris Stroffolino]

or maybe the last three lines...

On May 14, 2007, at 2:42 PM, Suzanne Baran wrote:

> THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS!
>
> On 5/14/07, Linda Sue Grimes <suelin7184 at gmail.com> wrote:
> the first three lines are all that is necessary...the rest is mere  
> repetition...
>
> respectfully
> lsg
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Anny Ballardini
> To: New Poetry
> Sent: Monday, May 14, 2007 12:05 PM
> Subject: [New-Poetry] so you want to be a writer? by Charles Bukowski
>
> Sent to me by Anna Guterl:
>
> so you want to be a writer?
> by Charles Bukowski
>
>
> if it doesn't come bursting out of you
>
> in spite of everything,
>
> don't do it.
>
> unless it comes unasked out of your
>
> heart and your mind and your mouth
>
> and your gut,
>
> don't do it.
>
> if you have to sit for hours
>
> staring at your computer screen
>
> or hunched over your
>
> typewriter
>
> searching for words,
>
> don't do it.
>
> if you're doing it for money or
>
> fame,
>
> don't do it.
>
> if you're doing it because you want
>
> women in your bed,
>
> don't do it.
>
> if you have to sit there and
>
> rewrite it again and again,
>
> don't do it.
>
> if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
>
> don't do it.
>
> if you're trying to write like somebody
>
> else,
>
> forget about it.
>
>
>
> if you have to wait for it to roar out of
>
> you,
>
> then wait patiently.
>
> if it never does roar out of you,
>
> do something else.
>
>
> if you first have to read it to your wife
>
> or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
>
> or your parents or to anybody at all,
>
> you're not ready.
>
>
> don't be like so many writers,
>
> don't be like so many thousands of
>
> people who call themselves writers,
>
> don't be dull and boring and
>
> pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
>
> love.
>
> the libraries of the world have
>
> yawned themselves to
>
> sleep
>
> over your kind.
>
> don't add to that.
>
> don't do it.
>
> unless it comes out of
>
> your soul like a rocket,
>
> unless being still would
>
> drive you to madness or
>
> suicide or murder,
>
> don't do it.
>
> unless the sun inside you is
>
> burning your gut,
>
> don't do it.
>
>
> when it is truly time,
>
> and if you have been chosen,
>
> it will do it by
>
> itself and it will keep on doing it
>
> until you die or it dies in you.
>
>
> there is no other way.
>
>
> and there never was.
>
>
>
>
>
> Anny Ballardini
> http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
> http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
> http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
> I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a  
> dancing star!
> Friedrich Nietzsche
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> "To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown  
> for a few timeless hours the outer and inner world, not as they  
> appear to an animal obsessed with survival or to a human being  
> obsessed with words and notions, but as they are apprehended,  
> directly and unconditionally, by Mind at Large— this is an  
> experience of inestimable value to everyone and especially to the  
> intellectual."  - Aldous Huxley
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20070607/82666714/attachment.html