Thinking Like a Poet

If you are a literary critic, then you have an edge in scholarly writing because you are already highly attuned to writing. Your specialty is taking apart texts to see how they work. If you are a specialist in poetry, then you can explain every detail of writing at the highest level--a poem by Lorine Niedecker, say. Your own writing will never be that good, but at least you understand the principles involved.

I don't really trust a literary critic who can't write or a geometer with a shaky hand. (A cartographer who gets lost on the way to the mall.) Such a critic has not learned to think like a poet.