Ask Not What Poetry Can Do For You: Becoming a Good Literary Citizen
Lately, I find myself taking stock of my poetry goals—for me, this means trying to focus more on what I have done than what I haven't done. For example, instead of saying, “I only published 4 poems,” I say, “Wow, I published 4 poems!” Trust me, it’s much easier said than done. In other words, it's so easy to tear myself down about how I fell short and much more challenging to allow myself to be proud of what I actually accomplished.
In these moments of harsh self-criticizing over my so-called “productivity,” I have often failed to account for some really important work. I think, “I should’ve worked harder. Written more. Sent more work out.” (Like I said, this part comes easily.) However, in crunching the numbers of publications and rejections, I have overlooked some really important accomplishments that are not countable like publication acceptances or new poems written.
If you’re reading this, you probably have done this math in your head at some point. And you know this is a numbers game that is not stacked in your favor. While I cannot dispense with these numbers completely, I am making a conscious effort to push back on my own thinking—trying to reframe what I see as productivity in terms of poetry. Instead of saying “I only wrote 15 poems this month when I planned to write 30,” I am saying “I wrote 15 poems!” To take this a step further, I have been asking myself another important question:
What did I give to Poetry? How did I help Poetry?
Wait—how can you give to or help Poetry? The answer is two fold: community building and service learning.
Community Building
In a larger sense, community building is an umbrella term that refers to making connections with others in a shared space. For the purposes of this discussion, I mean: making connections with poets in the poetry world.
You have probably already done this in one way or another—perhaps you’ve taken a class or attended a conference? Perhaps, you have read your work online or in-person at an open mic or reading? In doing any of these things, you are building your own poetry community.
Just showing up as a poet in the world has a lot of benefits for both you as a human and you as a poet because putting yourself out there as a poet is an extraordinary opportunity to grow and learn.
Service Learning
The second, service learning, is an educational term referring to the practice of “combining learning goals and community service in ways that can enhance both student growth and the common good.” So, service learning is learning through the experience of serving (or helping).
Like community building, supporting poetry through your actions is not just a nice thing to do, but a way to grow your writing practice and craft as a poet. Besides just showing up for poetry, you can take an active role in supporting poetry in many tangible ways—by becoming a good literary citizen.
Literary Citizenship
What I am talking about is sometimes called Literary Citizenship—an idea that encompasses both community building and service learning. As I mentioned, building community and helping in the poetry world has a lot of benefits beyond altruism. In fact, being a good literary citizen has the potential to be very valuable to the practice of poetry writing practice.
If you want to be a good literary citizen—and you are ready to take some steps in that direction—here are some opportunities to engage in both community-building and service learning:
1. Attend a workshop or class
Either in person in your community or online. You can do this through a community organization, a larger national one. There are also a lot of opportunities to attend workshops and classes offered by independent poets who are not affiliated with an organization.
Enrolling in a workshop or a class is clearly a way to learn something new (like a form or craft technique) and to get direct feedback on your work; it is also a way to serve poetry in the larger sense, as you what you bring to a formal learning experience like this can be just as important as what you take away. Your positive presence, your thoughtfulness, your close reading and attention to the poets around you are all important ways to contribute.
2. Keep in touch
This builds on number one. When a good workshop or craft class comes to an end, it is sad. For me, if I have been productive in poem-making or revising, I worry that the momentum I was riding will come to a halt—and to extend the physics metaphor, nothing is worse than inertia for my own writing practice.
But maybe there are some poets that you have connected with on some level or whose feedback has been helpful. There is no reason you can’t continue to work with them. But that won’t happen unless you ask them if they want to be your poetry friend (again, easier said than done, especially for the introverts out there).
It is a risk, but one really worth taking, as having people who know you and your work is a huge asset—and being that person for someone else is another kind of joy.
3. Show up on socials
I don’t always have a lot of praise to offer social media platforms (and let’s be honest, that list is not getting shorter). The time suck of purposeless scrolling or doom scrolling is clearly a distraction that can get in between you and your poems. But here’s the thing: it's a great way to keep up with poetry on the whole.
You can follow the journals you want to publish in, the individual poets whose work is inspiring to you, the poets who you were in a workshop with before, the local and virtual organizations that sponsor classes and readings, and the presses that put out books you read.
Social media with this type of intention can help you to stay informed about all kinds of important information: upcoming deadlines, prizes, opportunities for volunteer readerships, poems from forthcoming collections, and much more.
If you need a hard boundary with socials, set up a separate poet profile where you only follow and interact with poetry-related accounts and profiles. And another thing…participate in the economy of information by sharing and posting about them
4. Be a volunteer reader for a journal, press, or contest
If you want to publish poems in literary journals or publish a collection of your poems through an independent press, volunteering in this way can be a very valuable activity.
While this may seem to just be an act of unpaid labor that you don’t have time for, it is also a way to see literary publishing in a new way. You get to gain an understanding of how poems are chosen, see the grand scope of how many poems (many of them eminently publishable and well crafted) are submitted to a journal. This type of perspective has helped me be more confident in submitting more work and to take rejection less personally. Small publishers and literary journals rely on volunteer labor to keep them going, so this is a really high value service you can offer.
Beyond that, being a volunteer reader allows you to refine your own aesthetic—to define what you like in a poem as a reader and ultimately, what type of poems you want to write.
5. Show up to poetry readings virtually or in person
Is there a local venue that hosts readings or open mics for poets and writers? Go to them. Be in that space.
There is nothing quite like hearing a poem read in the voice it was created. It imparts a new sparkle to the poems. Attending readings is also a great way to connect with other poets whose work resonates with you. When you hear something that you connect with, make it a point to tell that poet how much you enjoyed their work.
6. Subscribe and buy books
This probably goes without saying, but if/when you can, buy books from independent presses and subscribe to journals. If you don’t want to commit to a full subscription, you can usually purchase a sample issue.
Again, this is something that materially supports these publishing outlets, but also is fundamental to building your poetry muscle. This is probably really obvious but these journals and presses are run by humans (who are almost always also poets) and these people have an aesthetic (what makes them choose certain poems and not others). The only way to get a feel for an aesthetic is to critically and closely read the poems they do choose. If you do this enough, you will start to pick up on what they look for in a poem or manuscript.
I say this like it is super easy, but it's actually not easy at first. It requires you to actively read, which is an important muscle to build. A great way to become a better reader is to review the books you buy and read—there are many sites where users can submit reviews (GoodReads). If you purchased the book online, leave a short review on the site (Amazon and Bookshop both allow you to write short reviews about purchases).
7. Give the Gift of Poetry
Very often, when I have occasion to give a gift to a reader in my life, I give poetry collections to the people in my life (yes, even to the poetry-phobic among—the ones that tell you they just don’t get poetry). I always try to match the person with the collection—what would they like? What poet might they connect with?
Sometimes I just send someone a poem via email. Or I print a poem out to put in a card.
This is not an exhaustive list—I am sure there is more you can do.
The point is that there is more to being a poet in the world than the tally of your publication successes. I won’t deny these are important to most of us (myself included), but this is not everything.
For me, striving to be a better literary citizen has become inseparable from trying to be a better writer of poetry. Giving more back to poetry has reflected back on the quality of my writing and contributed to my sense of being a poet. Not only have I made some amazing poetry friends, but I have also gained a deeper sense of belonging in the world of poetry.
This last part is probably the most important lesson for me—this feeling of belonging, this sense of ownership in the poetry world has made me a more skillful and confident poet, which in the end, is everything.
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This article was published on October 28, 2025. Written by:
