7 Things You Should Know About Being a Poet

Aaron McCollough told a Michigan Daily reporter "7 things you should know about being a poet." Deborah Ager has challenged other poets to come up with their own "7 things" lists.

Here are my 7 Things You Should Know About Being a Poet:

1) You need to have poet friends for two reasons-- acceptances and rejections. Your family will have no idea why you are so excited about being published in Literary Journal X and no idea why you are so disappointed you were rejected from Literary Journal Y.

2) Poets do not need to wear a beret, black turtleneck, vintage t-shirt, colorful scarf, glasses, whimsical pin, or hold a glass of wine in their author photo to be considered a poet.

3) Poets are rich in words. (Ya, the "gettin' paid" thing. Get over it.)

4) We are not all suicidal, drunks, falling apart, narcissistic, or crazy. However, we may write about those things and at time we may or may not be all of those things.

5) Each poet has one huge character flaw or secret that s/he tries desperately to hide.

6) At a reading, poets should never say, "Here's a poem I wrote this morning."

7) We write because we cannot not write.