Yet in lining up the external poetic chips into publishable “articulateness” rather than “indwelling,” you face the danger of writing what poet Derek Walcott terms “a fake poem.” Still, many yearn for the status that public recognition brings, even as they recognize the possible falsity involved.

“A thing is funny,” writer George Orwell explains, “when—in some way that is not actually offensive or frightening—it upsets the established order. Every joke is a tiny revolution.”

For Winnicott, creativity, aliveness, and feeling real—the hallmarks of a healthy individual—are accessed through play. By behaving spontaneously, in line with our instincts, we have the potential to provoke ourselves—and others—into possibility, whether it’s personal, poetic, or political.

like the map that comes to stand in for the territory, as philosopher Jean Baudrillard describes it: a simulation that takes the place of the real.

When an infant modifies its behavior to please—a survival mechanism at base, given the infant’s dependency on the mother for its basic needs—the socialized self begins to develop.

is immoral is what you feel bad after.” Perhaps Hemingway’s thinking can be extrapolated to poetry.

To live by formula, according to Emily Dickinson, leads to feeling closeted: They shut me up in Prose— As when a little Girl They put me in the Closet— Because they liked me “still”—

“So far, about morals,” writes Ernest Hemingway, “I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what

What does beautiful mean? Still close to her clown, she replied, Beautiful means most self.