Don’t fancy that the poem that gives up its meaning quickest gives most, or lives longest.
Don’t make the mistake of believing that vers libre is easier to write than rhymed metrical verse—or the reverse.
Don’t think because you say a thing, it is so. Your venture is as uncertain as the poet’s. Authority, unless bestowed by the Mayor, is the gift of time; and then not unassailable.
Don’t reverence only dead poets or be certain that the dead poets would think just as you do about contemporary poets.
Don’t discard the past for the future, or the future for the past. We learn about the earth from the telescope, and about the stars from the microscope.
DON’T be as negative as this list, or sit on the fence. It is better to be on the wrong side than to straddle.
Poems[3]
JEANNE D’ORGE