There is no I in Poet

By Jamil Adas

Writing poetry does not make you a poet.

A poet is the unspoken title that is humbly earned through other’s lips. You trample on that title when you crown yourself with it.

Other titles are measured like 1+1=2 like a doctor is a doctor when she practices medicine, an engineer is an engineer when he secures his certificate of engineering. Society deems them to be worthy of these titles due to the completion of a well-calculated curriculum that is agreed upon. If we, as mankind, ever agree upon poetry, then know it is dead.

You would never write your own elegy and likewise you should never call yourself a poet.