Start with a shot when someone says poetry requires us to “journey to the edges of ourselves.”

Take a sip whenever someone says something exists within a liminal space.

Take two sips when anyone says “this poem is kind of an ars poetica.”

Whenever someone says poetry is jazz, shoop beep florp and down three gulps.

Shotgun a beer whenever someone “uncovers the spirituality of a poem” as a way of “writing to the dead.”

Take a shot as you begin writing to your dead. Another when they arrive. And again for good measure, to urge them to leave.