- What is the poem about? Summarize it in one sentence.
- Read the author’s opinion on his poem. Do you agree or disagree?
Your poem “friendly advice to a lot of young men” says that one is better off living in a barrel than he is writing poetry. Would you give the same advice today?
I guess what I meant is that you are better off doing nothing than doing something badly. But the problem is that bad writers tend to have the self-confidence, while the good ones tend to have self-doubt. So the bad writers tend to go on and on writing crap and giving as many readings as possible to sparse audiences. These sparse audiences consist mostly of other bad writers waiting their turn to go on, to get up there and let it out in the next hour, the next week, the next month, the next sometime. The feeling at these readings is murderous, airless, anti-life. When failures gather together in an attempt at self-congratulation, it only leads to a deeper and more, abiding failure. The crowd is the gathering place of the weakest; true creation is a solitary act.
Poem production:
Use imperatives and repetition. Include at least:
- 8 lines.
- 2 strange pieces of advice.
- 2 realistic pieces of advice.
- 1 funny piece of advice.
- a final line beginning with But don’t… that changes the tone of the poem.
In groups of 2 or 3, students:
1. Share their poems.
Read them aloud and choose one favorite line from each poem.
2. Create a poster or digital collage.
Include:
- The title.
- 4–6 selected lines from group members’ poems.
- Pictures, drawings, magazine cutouts, emojis, or AI-generated images.
- Different fonts, colors, and layouts.
- A group title (for example, Friendly Advice for Surviving University).
P I C N I C
- Games: alphabet game
- Werewolf: cards