I like Karl Shapiro's motto:
Lower the standard: that’s my motto. Somebody is always putting the
food out of reach. We’re tired of falling off ladders. Who says
a child can’t paint? A pro is somebody who does it for money.
Lower the standards. Let’s all play poetry. Down with ideals,
flags, convention buttons, morals, the scrambled eggs on the
admiral’s hat. I’m talking sense. Lower the standards. Sabo-
tage the stylistic approach. Let weeds grow in the subdivision.
Putty up the incisions in the library façade, those names that
frighten grade-school teachers, those names whose U’s are
cut like V’s. Burn the Syntopicon and The Harvard Classics.
Lower the standard on classics, battleships, Russian ballet,
national anthems (but they’re low enough). Break through to
the bottom. Be natural as an American abroad who knows no
language, not even American. Keelhaul the poets in the ves-
try chairs. Renovate the Abbey of cold-storage dreamers. Get
off the Culture Wagon. Learn how to walk the way you want.
Slump your shoulders, stick your belly out, arms all over the
table. How many generations will this take? Don’t think about
it, just make a start. (You have made a start.) Don’t break any-
thing you can step around, but don’t pick it up. The law of grav-
ity is the law of art. You first, poetry second, the good, the
beautiful, the true come last. As the lad said: We must love
one another or die.