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

[Suzanne Baran]

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 <anny.ballardini at tin.it>
> *To:* New Poetry <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> *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
>
> ------------------------------
>
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-- 
"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
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