Erica Jong

The Commandments

You don’t really want to be a poet. First of all, if you’re a woman, you have to be three times as good as any of the men. Secondly, you have to fuck everyone. And thirdly, you have to be dead. – Mark Strand

If a woman wants to be a poet,
she should sleep near the moon with her face open;
she should walk through herself studying the landscape;
she should not write her poems in menstrual blood.

If a woman wants to be a poet,
she should run backwards circling the volcano;
she should feel for the movement along her faults;
she should not get a Ph.D. in seismography.

If a woman wants to be a poet,
she should not sleep with uncircumcised manuscripts;
she should not write odes to her abortions;
she should not make stew of old unicorn meat.

If a woman wants to be a poet,
she should read French cookbooks and Chinese vegetables;
she should suck on French poets to freshen her breath;
she should not masturbate in writing seminars.

If a woman wants to be a poet,
she should peel back the hair from her eyeballs;
she should listen to the breathing of sleeping men;
she should listen to the spaces between that breathing.

If a woman wants to be a poet,
she should not write her poems with a dildo;
she should pray that her daughters are women;
she should forgive her father for his bravest sperm.