More of a lecture and a personal statement of beliefs, so you want to be a writer

is Charles Bukowskis pithy manifesto on the urge to write. Written in open verse
without capitalization the poem is almost a retro-Beat-generation lecture and obs
ervation on what writing is not and who should not write. One can imagine this p
oem being recited to the beat of a bongo drum in a 50s coffee shop where the drum
mer accentuates the writers frequent use of dont do it throughout the poem.
From the very first line, the author advises, dont do it, (it being writing) if it do
esnt come bursting out of you / in spite of everything. The author liberally use
s the word if throughout his longest first stanza and the shorter second and third
ones. He suddenly switches to unless in the fourth line to build on the notion th
at writing is a bursting forth: unless it comes unasked out of your / heart and y
our mind and your mouth / and your gut. The poem, then, is about the visceral exp
erience and the urge to write. The poet tells us that writing cannot be forced a
nd produced, but must roar out of you. If just thinking about writing is hard work o
r if youre trying to write like somebody / else, the poet again says, dont do it.
The poems best and most telling advice to writers is this: dont be dull and boring
and / pretentious, dont be consumed with self- / love. Libraries, he says, have yaw
ned themselves to / sleep / over your kind. In the end, the poet claims that writ
ers are chosen. It will happen all by itself and it will keep on doing it / until y
ou die or it dies in you.
There is nothing in the poem about honing writing skills or having a clear idea
of the planning that has to go into large writing tasks like novels. The author,
in fact, appears to disregard purposefully accepted writing convention in layin
g out the lines of his poem. He abandons English capitalization rules and goes s
traight to his message. He views writing as more an urge that becomes bottled in
side the writer that, unless it comes out of / your soul like a rocket, again, dont
do it.
Perhaps not the best advice to an English composition student with an essay-writ
ing deadline, the poet seems to exclude the notion that writing might somehow be
two parts inspiration with a generous dose of skill. The poem is more about the
art and the urge of writing, and does a fine job in articulating what truly tal
ented and inspired writers feel. For the untalented and uninspired, there is onl
y the craft, whose end-product is more like a paint-by-numbers picture hung nex
t to a Picasso.
The theme of the poem is: inspiration
The style of the poem is: conversational
We can infer from the poem, that writing: cannot be forced.
For Bukowski, "true writers" are: chosen