What is the best advice you ever received on writing good poetry

Question

The best advice that I got is probably:

In poetry, you are not trying to communicate information, but experience.

Answer 1

Don't even try it.....I was told.

I WROTE some lines once on a time

In wondrous merry mood,

And thought, as usual, men would say

They were exceeding good.

They were so q***r, so very q***r,

I laughed as I would die;

Albeit, in the general way,

A sober man am I.

I called my servant, and he came;

How kind it was of him

To mind a slender man like me,

He of the mighty limb.

"These to the printer," I exclaimed,

And, in my humorous way,

I added, (as a trifling jest,)

"There'll be the devil to pay."

He took the paper, and I watched,

And saw him peep within;

At the first line he read, his face

Was all upon the grin.

He read the next; the grin grew broad,

And shot from ear to ear;

He read the third; a chuckling noise

I now began to hear.

The fourth; he broke into a roar;

The fifth; his waistband split;

The sixth; he burst five buttons off,

And tumbled in a fit.

Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye,

I watched that wretched man,

And since, I never dare to write

As funny as I can.

Answer 2

Probably the best advice I ever got was "Give it up, it'll break your heart worse than a woman".  Of course I was stubborn, and did not give it up, and now you see what is left after years of ridicule and humiliation.  What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.

Answer 3

"Make every word count."

Answer 4

A teacher pulled me aside one day and said, "Don't worry so much about learning how to write a good story. Go out there and learn how to tell a good story."

Answer 5

...it doesn't need to rhyme and should be built from your heart

Answer 6

That poetry is not made of ideas, but of words. That was Mallarmé talking to me. I was very young then. Considering he died in 1898.

EDIT: corrected typo... I am such a perfectionist.

Answer 7

i think i've only been given one piece of advice that applied generically to all my poetry. it was something along the lines of....

"you keep putting in lines just to fill the gaps. stop it!"

i don't think i succeeded in avoiding the advice-giver's "crime" of filler lines...

Answer 8

mine was write from your heart and soul shallow poets are un expressive  

Answer 9

The best advice I have ever gotten is to read poetry, lots of it and different styles.

Answer 10

Make it bleed.

Answer 11

Write what you know.

Answer 12

From my Creative Writing instructor on punctuation:

"You can use it in poems, you know--not only CAN you, but you SHOULD!"

Answer 13

K.I.S.S.

Answer 14

Show, don't tell

Use detail to show

Be prepared to cross out that word or phrase you really really really like if it doesn't fit.

Answer 15

Please let someone that knows how to write poetry do it, not you.  

Answer 16

your tryin to communicate information to, just make sure you say what you want to say the way you want to say it.  

Answer 17

Let your heart do the thinking and your hand do the writing.

Answer 18

Probably try and explain the experience with words, instead of just using words! Close to the one you received!  Cheers!!

Answer 19

mine was "What is this c**p ... Toilet Paper?"