EliSa A. Garza

How to Become an American Poet

First, understand that poetry

is not for you, little brown girl.

Poetry is written in proper English,

not that border slang you speak.

Second, poems are serious:

love and nature, death,

wars, nation building. You know

nothing of such things, and later,

when you have learned about war,

nations, loved, seen death,

visited nature, you will realize:

your pretty words do not build

our knowledge. If only you

were a man. A man, at least

can see beyond the ordinary.

Third, if you must write,

do not write about women,

or their sphere. Serious poems

ignore domestic life:

no new knowledge in the house.

Fourth, no one will publish

your writing under that name,

so foreign and female. If you

do manage to write in proper English,

seriously, like a man, you must

be anonymous to readers, your name

ordinary, interchangeable, unremembered.

 
 

Elisa A. Garza is a poet, editor, and former writing and literature teacher. Her full-length collection, Regalos (Lamar University Literary Press), was a finalist for the National Poetry Series. Her chapbook, Between the Light / entre la claridad (Mouthfeel Press), is now in its second edition. Her poems have recently appeared in Southern Humanities Review, Rogue Agent, and Huizache.