The Devil's Advice to Poets

Molt that skin! Lift that face!—you'll go far.

Grow like Proteus yet more bizarre.

In perpetual throes

Majors metamorphose—

Only minors remain who they are.

X.J. Kennedy

From Cross Ties: Selected Poems (University
of Georgia Press, 1985), copyright (c) 1985
by X. J. Kennedy. For permission to reprint,
transmit by internet, or for any other purpose,
address Curtis Brown Ltd., Ten Astor Place,
New York, NY 10003.