1. If he is Catholic he will feel guilty. If he is Protestant he will feel guilty for not feeling guilty. If he is Jewish he will call his mother from bed.
2. He will snore and you will not be able to get his snoring out of your head, even hours after he has left your apartment.
3. In bed he will say things decidedly unpoetic, like, Baby, my cock feels huge when it’s inside you, and feel rather impressed with himself.
4. He will really listen and this deep listening will make you say things you never knew you wanted to say.
5. He might make you believe that you are really the poet. When he attempts to break up with you, his word patterns will form in your mind: Only weeks ago, running your lips across my neck and trying to memorize the shape of my shoulder. Just weeks ago, my shoulder.
6. You will not be able to let go of various maddening details. (a) He will speak to your hands as if they are separate from the rest of you. (b) He will move his fingertips across your stomach, not in a sexy way, but in a way that makes you think he is comparing it to another stomach. (c) He will describe you as delicate.
7. He might want to make poet babies. He might cry before he makes you cry. He might have women in his past who seem a little too present.
8. Like other kinds of men, he will never understand the anguish of carrying a phone that does not ring. Unlike other kinds of men, he will seem to fall off the planet for weeks at a time, lost in a place—that goddamned place you know to be a space in his head and not an actual location.
9. Poets expect grand gestures. To your own surprise, you will deliver such gestures. You will forsake other friends and lovers, and consider wearing on a chain around your neck a small gold vial of poet blood.
10. In his car, in a rare moment where the world seems right, you will sing along with an old and overplayed Goo Goo Dolls song. You will sing, Don’t you love her like a cure? And instead of letting you have the line your way, letting the world seem right just a moment longer, he will inform you that the line is really, Don’t you love the life you killed?
***
42 responses
11. He will liken you to be reciting poetry with some Indian perspective, and when the apparition is over he will come up with most ridiculous excuse in the world for rushing to the bathroom to rewrite one of his own lines, and come back with the most annotated face for an expression of delight, and you’ll keep assuming, for a real long time, that it mirrored something else.
12. if you’re unfortunate enough to actually enjoy his work, you will begin to occasionally, in his already published poems, come across sexual/romantic imagery and/or entire lines that you assumed, when he murmured them to you, were original, totally inspired by the moment. You will try to chalk this up to his personal obsessions & symbol system, but really, you will suspect that he might just be lazy.
13.
actually, you may be a poet all ready and no one should sleep with you. because you will use everything they say in a poem later, then say, it’s not real…it’s poetry. this is metaphor, baby. and if he or she is a poet, you will get mad they use your words in their poem.
14. He will write a poem for every woman he slept with, except you. He thinks this is kind, but it only makes you crazy.
He will hate you for your money yet beg you to give him some
In one of his poems he sensuously describes his lover, on whom he is cheating with you, as having “chocolate skin.” But when you surprise him with some homemade truffles, he admits that he hates chocolate. It’s then that you realize he’s not only a cheat, but also a bad poet.
I love that the list continues!
But we should all still sleep with the lady poets, right? Lady poets need love, too.
You cats need to date some real poets.
15. He is actually a finance major with an embarrassing secret
About a year ago, I wrote some light verse on the love life of a poet. Find a fragment below. If you like it, see the full version: http://www.basholzhaustekst.nl/rijmen-en-dichten/17-meer-rijmen-verzen-en-gedichten (Scroll through the dutch poems.)
….
I stand thinking, she keeps winking
Wishing me into her arms
But I know I’m not to go, I’m
Captured by my muse’s charms
She is urging, I am searching
Words to frame the scene I see
Not her figure is my picture
But the form of poetry
Pentameter, hexameter?
Which will suit my feelings best?
She’s lascivious – I’m oblivious
Of her want, her heaving chest
Should I sense her like a Spenser
Honouring his Faerie Queene?
Or recall her like E. Waller
‘Lovely roses must be seen’?
Should I make clear like a Shakespeare
‘Love looks not with eyes but mind’?
Or bring words forth like a Wordsworth
‘Weak our will, our judgement blind’?
Observation, contemplation
Passion has eternity?
Confirmation, cancellation
Love will live, but not for me
Out of lust she hurries past me
Picking up some clothes en route
My excuses, they are useless
It’s goodbye, for now, for good .
…..
15. He’ll tell you that YOU’RE the one who’s fucked up.
16. “But I can’t write if I don’t (drink/smoke/sleep all day/sit in the best place in the house).”
17. Mature poet that he is, he has developed a way to talk about crucial philosophical issues in terms of his relationship with a woman that he was sleeping with before you.
18. If he seems straight, he is occasionally gay. If he seems gay, he is occasionally straight. If he seems bisexual, he is secretly asexual. If he seems asexual, he is having sex with your pets.
Slightly offended by # 1. Seems like a bad joke…
J, I’m curious, are you slightly offended that the joke is
1) bad
2) about poets
3) about Jews / Catholics / Protestants
4) about poets?
#19: When you break up (and you know that this is an inevitability, as destined as the sun to rise) you will quietly seek mention of yourself in all love poetry, wishing perhaps momentarily that you had been the spark of the fire that made him one among a thousand stars, and realizing that this is a pointless endeavor, you will avoid poetry.
19. If you can afford his broke ass, you can also afford an upgrade.
20. He will fly across country to support you in your moment of grief, all the while talking about the “tragedy” that is his love for a married poet in another country.
21. He will sit on your living room couch, reading poetry from your shelves while muttering under his breath in “poet voice.”
22. He will stink up your bathroom every morning.
i can absolutely anecdotally support #1. which makes me wonder, how have i dated some sort of comparative religions textbook of these doofuses?
23. He will raid your fridge while you’re still in bed, and leave this note:
“This is just to say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.”
24. And yet after all this you will still crave to go back, again… and again… and again.
Thomas, you just made me cry laughing at 18 because that right there is the motherf*cking TRUTH! 🙂
Ten Reasons TO Sleep with a Poet
1. If they were raised without religion, their use of imagery and metaphor will be straightforward; they will call you simple, endearing names like, “honey†and “dear.†If they were raised in some fundamentalist religion, you will sense the pain and anguish in the depth of their eyes and experience the back and forth of the dogmatic right/wrong hold from which their heart is still trying to get out from underneath; you will excuse this because of the ways in which they often make you feel holy.
2. They will sigh softly in their sleep when they wake up intermittently and realize that you are lying next to them and express this satisfaction and elation through whispers that slightly resemble their waking voices. This sound will echo in your ears as you are moving through your day.
3. In bed, they will say things like, I want you to fuck me with your huge cock, which said by anyone else might seem crass and disgusting, but it does nothing but turn you on more and you are even sure that this might be a line from a more radical poem on the politics of queer sex that they have written.
4. They will listen deeply to everything that you say, and at the beginning you might wonder if they are really listening, and then two weeks later they recite the exact thing you said and this is both a little embarrassing (did I really say that?) and wonderful at the same time.
5. They help you believe that you, too, are really a poet. They sometimes (obnoxiously) rephrase observations that you make about simple, mundane things to point out the beauty so much so that when you are alone and notice something simple, you can imagine what they might say about the way the jade plant in your living room leans slightly forward to take in all of the sun that it can.
6. They imprint your life with small details that drive you crazy and that you never realized you had room for before, like the way they describe the line from your hipbone to your chest, which they describe over and over again as “open.†They notice how you slouch in your chair when you are angry and tuck your thumbs into your fists when you are feeling anxious.
7. They will laugh with a sense of joy that feels pure. They tear up at sunsets. They have loved deeply, over and over again.
8. Their preferred form of communication is (clearly) the written word, and they will send you emails and texts with lines from their favorite books of poetry. They leave you notes in the morning written on napkins, wrappers, and bits of paper you had lying around.
9. Sleeping with a poet will set a new precedence in the act of gift-giving and celebrating holidays (especially birthdays) from there on out. They will give you gifts they have made themselves or buy you something you never directly asked for but happened to mention one day, like when you told the story about longing to play catch with your older brother growing up and then they bought you your own glove for Christmas. Or they will write bits of Rumi on the pots of houseplants they give you and say things in cards, like: “You were in my dream last night. I don’t remember the whole of it, but you kissed me. The potency of the sensation was incredible—even in a dream. And when I woke up, I still felt the kiss in my body.â€
10. Nothing will ever be just what it is. Getting brunch will be a reason to write a joint poem on a napkin together, each of you authoring alternating lines. Reading to one another from your favorite books will take the place of meals because you will forget that you are hungry, a walk in the spring will be full of wind and smells and colors and tastes and textures that you never imagined before, especially not before you slept with a poet.
25. After you’ve moved on, your friends and family will ask you over and over again if you’re the psychotic b*tch that he wrote about in his latest work, and then not believe you when you say no.
I’m perturbed, by your obsession with my verbs,
You should know that I don’t conjugate
Whilst I’m conjugal.
No matter how often I may cogitate
A way with words,
Does not a Casanova make.
Don’t get me wrong,
I’m happy to fiddle while Rome burns
But don’t expect me to rustle up a couplet
As I copulate.
The great Romantics I cannot emulate…
That’s a tall order, to skirt your genital border,
And simultaneously twist my tongue around a stanza
Or a witty pun.
I can’t face all these great expectations,
Do you ask this of all your creative liaisons?
Must a singer croon a song that is rude,
An artist sketch a reclining nude,
Do you shag your way through the Bohemian spectrum
On the lookout for a strummer who is deft with their plectrum?
You’re flirting under a misapprehension,
I’m not really feeling the contextual tension,
And I think it’s best if we don’t swap information
But have you met my friend?
He’s very big
In installation.
©2008
i have to admit, those are some pretty convincing reasons to sleep with a poet.
poets, i’m fully expecting some lengthy emails to woo me.
If he claim’s his name is Henry Longfellow, it’s a lie intended to hint at an exceptional but false girth. His name is really Bob Jones. And if he says, “that was better than Paul Revere’s Ride”, do NOT call him back.
SHE
will say things like,
“baby, my cock feels so huge inside you”
and feeling rather impressed with herself.
He will read aloud a sentence of your fiction, then look at you doubtfully and say “Seriously?”
i love this!!
LOL Comical but this is the heart of this poet and many poets I know and Love…. * Peace * ♥ONE ℒℴνℯ♥ ☼ Light ☼†Continual BLESSINGS †Jill
Heart of a Poet
poets are not religious
but, spitual
whispers and sentiments
of sheer adoration
written in conviction
utterances ,actions,
and gestures match
their scensation
fondles your cerbral
cortex beyond imagination
a poets spirit
is unihibitated
we say and do
what most only think
in bold black ink
everyone is a poet
and poets
let you know it
speaking the unspoken
directly
into your heart
caressing your ID
in fluid -tangible art
places your never knew
exisited nor experienced
poets express
and address
their emotions
……freely
dripping….
….. fluidly
soul to soul
symmentry
Loving limitless-
continuous
near or far
wherever you are
without expectation
truly there
when you need
us most
spontaneous….
for all our lives
we have been
perceived as unusual
poets welcome all
unconditionally
for we see
the ordinary
as examplanary
poets are Lovers
and poetry is
the universal
language of Love
© 2012 Jill Delbridge
Reason #11 is the very
reason for some;
poets can’t sleep
with everyone.
sounds to me just 10 reasons not to sleep with a douchebag
Let’s get real for a minute. The truer, more necessary list is 10 reasons why a poet should never sleep with another poet!
Billy good point. This looks like another column in the making for the Rumpus.
Ellen Says:
15. He’ll tell you that YOU’RE the one who’s fucked up.
Ellen: I am no poet, but if you date me I will tell you exactly this – without respect to its veracity. This is the mantra of Hideous Men.
#26: She will write a poem about your cock, and get upset when you take it as a joke.
As a poet, at least on my good days, I think most of the list is both touching and hilarious. Some items are one rather than the other. The comments are generally a delight as well.
If I were single I would no doubt be attempting to woo some who have weighed in.
Grey is an excellent example of why you shouldn’t sleep with a poet.
If you question his antics in any way, you will get a turgid mass of patronizing smarmery in return. He will believe that he is intellectually superior to you, and that you’ll be so awestruck by his amazing talent that you’ll do whatever he wants.
Grey. Thank you. That was beautiful. Will you go out with me?
I once spent the night with a poet, let’s just say she was a better lover than writer.
Gray, I would like your permission to reprint your comment “Ten Reasons TO Sleep with a Poet on my website’s blog, “Sanity Bubble.”
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