Just leading on from the terminology thread and my comment on being an apprentice poet.

When I first joined a poetry class three years ago my tutor said I needed to spend at least 20 hours a week on reading/writing/thinking poetry if I wanted to 'be' a poet. I didn't take him seriously at the time as I wasn't committed.

I'm now working on my first pamphlet and I see how right he is. If anything 20 hours a week isn't enough (particularly with the amount of reading work I need to do). I wondered what forum members would consider mandatory for young/new poets - poetry 'boot camp' if you will.

It doesn't sound unreasonable to me, although it doesn't always sound achievable either. But I suppose one of the real beauties of poetry is that it is so portable - you can break those 20 hours down into all sorts of bite-size chunks.

Poetry isn't really about how many hours you 'put in'. It's about turning your whole (inner) life to it. Like a religious conversion.

If poetry isn't what haunts your dreams, then ... well, there's always being a novelist, as a fall-back. After all, like God, poetry is always watching. No one would blame you for copping out and retreating to the less emotionally demanding territory of fiction. :D

I'm fully committed to the emotionally demanding. It's sadly often reflected in my emotionally demanding nature ;)

Writing fiction doesn't appeal.

Well I've been writing pretty much non-stop for the better part of a decade. Novels from the age of 16-20, poetry 20-24. There's literally not a day that goes during which I don't spend some time writing. It may only be a few minutes or it may be the entire day but I never stop.

Yeah, that's what I meant - 20 hours might sound like a lot, but if you're, as Jane put it, turning your whole inner life over to it, it pretty quickly adds up.

For me a few years ago I might have thought 'I'm now going to spend some time on poetry'. Now I have a necessity of poetry in the morning/poetry in the evening/ poetry in the afternoon/poetry in my business meetings/poetry in the bath etc. It's a total shift of mindset.

My question was not well phrased.

I didn't mean to ask if people thought 20 hours a week is enough to put you on the path to 'poethood' - the question was intended to be more general.

Have people got views on what poets should do to 'earn their stripes' as it were. The risk thread and hullabaloo about TWL got me thinking about this.

I seem to remember Auden had strong views on this. Didn't he plan some kind of school for poets? I think one of the rules was 'look after a domestic animal'. One could add 'and refrain from writing any poems about it'.

A quick websearch produced this - the rules of his 'Daydream College for the Bards':

1) In addition to English, at least one ancient language,
probably Greek or Hebrew, and two modern languages
would be required.

2) Thousands of lines of poetry in these languages
would be learned by heart.

3) The library would contain no books of literary criticism,
and the only critical exercise required of students would
be the writing of parodies.

4) Courses in prosody, rhetoric and comparative philology
would be required of all students, and every student would
have to select three courses out of courses in
mathematics, natural history, geology, meteorology,
archaeology, mythology, liturgics, cooking.

5) Every student would be required to look after a domestic animal and cultivate a garden plot.
— W. H. Auden

Do a cat and a bonsai tree count?

Yes, I was hoping my window box and intermediate cooking skills might count...

I'll never fulfil Auden's expectations. I can promise never to write a poem about a pet though. At least I'm not planning to.

I can do the Greek, and the other languages. Dunno about learning off by heart. I'm pretty rubbish with memory. I've had pets and gardens. But I don't agree about the absence of criticism. That's the fun part!

I've always regarded the process of building up a track record or publication in magazines as an apprenticeship of sorts. I'd add to that some sort of critical feedback - whether by workshop or by mentoring. The other essential component is reading: some of the canon, but definitely a range of contemporary poets.

I think time scales are artificial as everyone develops at different rates and at different times in their lives; I do think though, that however talented a poet is, some time working and developing out of the spotlight is needed.

I always think (partial) forgetting is--or at least can be--part of the creative act.

Apologies for referring to you as Jack previously, Chris. I wrongly presumed you were Jack Underwood, same age as you and also with Goldsmith's connections. This is partly why Jane likes to have clarity about posters' identities and for new posters to introduce themselves...

I did the maths and natural sciences, majored in geology, can cook (and iron), and I grow (and sell) veg. I fail on the dead tongues and the pet thing - really not a pet person, apart from my sporran, which no-one else may stroke.

Colin
(and check out StAnza)

Is Jack Underwood related to the cricketer? I think we should be told.