Do It Wrong: How to be a Poet in the Twenty-first Century by Derek Beaulieu

This book, Do It Wrong: How to be a Poet in the Twenty-first Century by Derek Beaulieu is a much marked-up book, my copy at least. But that’s okay. I have explicit written permission; in the introduction, Beaulieu instructs, “Don’t be afraid to mark it up, write in the margins, or, cross out the pages that don’t interest you. Dog-ear the pages, tear them out, and pin them to your walls.”

I can’t bring myself to tear out pages but there are full pages that are large-font sidebar quotes from the likes of Bernadette Mayer, Jack Spicer, bill bissett and others that are kind of tempting. Here’s one: “It’s important to self-publish and make your work available. Form small collectives.” — Diane di Prima.

Process can get lost in promotion and importance. One gets used to the dominant model of shoebox commerce, thinking of a book as a product.

Most of the money of making a book goes to the delivery service (bookstore and/or post office) and to the printer, a little bit to the publisher and a few cents to the author. Let’s get into that. Beaulieu points out that in Canada and the U.S. poetry accounts for 0.12% of book titles sold, and the book buying percentage of the population is low.

Beaulieu actually works out the per book payment. If you get a book published and it sells out after a couple years working on it— a standard Canada poetry print run of 500 copies— selling over 5 years, with your cut, that works out to $5 per week. Almost enough for a coffee at some shops. So, as we all often quip to one another, we’re not in it for the money. (This also underscores, buy books to make that market share creep up, doesn’t it?)

Beaulieu asks, why are we writing?

We as writers should know that. What is our end game? To what end? To find our people? To reach the people who are like us, before we knew what we know, to give them insight that we didn’t have? Are we trying to dialogue with what we read? To parse it? To shift society in this left-right tug of war? Because me must?

The book bias argues for the interests of agency, loosening framework of preciousness, copyrights and correctness. The How to Be of the title is to discard and disregard the world we are steadily leaving with its heroic story of individual bootstraps prestige, power and cash success — that kind of thinking of the old dying world as characterized by Rebecca Solnit in The Beginning Comes After the End (Haymarket, 2026). How about we flatten the imagined hierarchy? How about we engage with one another, be curious, be friendly, not tense competitors using a model of scarcity?

What exists depends on what we allow, what we build. Shall we be generous instead of self-stifled? Beaulieu found that contrary to intuition, giving poetry away does not prevent sales, but spreads ideas. Those who want a poem in paper will still buy it. As I mentioned in another review, (My Great-Grandfather Danced Ballet by Misha Solomon), a free set of poems sows interest not undercuts it.

A free set of poems sows interest not undercuts it.

Poetry does not have to be a tool to confine but to explore. As Beaulieu related, Sealey says poetry is “not necessarily to provide answers, but to provide a kind of articulation.” As Beaulieu said earlier, writing is “to contribute to a balanced ecology not race to the top of a food chain.” We can be aware and resist the system we’re in and self-define. Heady stuff.

In a time when we can be hierarchically graded on poetry, can pay to compete in contests and for magazine placements, in writing programs and for degrees, this flattens poetry to its fundamental essential nature. We exchange ideas as equals. Poetry is not for the few trained to esoteric ends, based on market-determined value, to be permitted transactional perfection.

The idea of hoarding and fearing theft of ideas could be flipped. “Pirate your books yourself.” Peel off your clinging fingers. Poetry is a process of living, an act of talking. He makes a bracing reinvigorating argument.

The end notes are a valuable list of further reading as well. Overall, well recommended as an antidote to anxiety about poetry as performance.

Well recommended as an antidote to anxiety about poetry as performance.

Derek Beaulieu is the author/editor of over twenty-five collections of poetry, prose, and criticism. His most recent volume of fiction, Silence: Lectures and Writings, was published by Sweden’s Timglaset Editions, his most recent volume of poetry, Surface Tension, was published by Toronto’s Coach House Books. Beaulieu has received the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal for his dedication to Albertan literature. He is the only graduate from the University of Calgary’s Department of English to receive the Faculty of Arts ‘Celebrated Alumni Award’ and the only graduate in creative writing to receive Roehampton University’s Chancellor’s Alumni Award. Beaulieu has served as Poet Laureate of both Calgary and Banff and is the Director of Literary Arts at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

Publisher: Assembly Press (April 7, 2026)
Paperback 4.75″ x 7″ | 132 pages
ISBN: 9781998336296

Pearl Pirie

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Pearl Pirie's latest is we astronauts (Pinhole Press, 2025). Pirie’s 4th poetry collection is footlights (Radiant Press, 2020). rain’s small gestures(Apt 9 Press, 2021) won the 2022 Nelson Ball Prize. www.pearlpirie.com and patreon.com/pearlpiriepoet

Pearl Pirie

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