Dear Dr. Perfect,

My daughter keeps threatening to become a poet. I’ve tried tasing her, but nothing has worked. A little help here?

Signed,

A Misunderstood Father

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Dear MF,

The searing pain of paralyzing electrical shocks will only embolden her. As the old saying goes, you don’t choose poetry, poeticalness kidnaps you.

I dabbled in spoken word during the beatnik revival of ’84. That short-lived moment slapped Greensboro, NC on the map. Ten years later, I sloshed and moshed through the mud of Woodstock ’94. I once even rear-ended sitar whiz Ravi Shankar’s caravan outside the Paris Theater. 

He was surprisingly belligerent and angry.

But enough about my wildly interesting life. You’ve got a hopeless daughter to save.

Her poetic yearning could be a phase, like skiffle music or breakdancing. My childhood dreams shifted between being an appellate court clerk and a carnival barker. Fate had other ideas. I came from a long line of advice columnists, dating back to the Mayflower. Their opinions were less popular than mine, but the calling called me.

Whether your daughter is evoking flowery iambic pentameter or free verse, the results are the same. Is it too late to send her to summer camp?

There is only one desperate measure that is sure to work: Take up poetry on your own, extolling its virtues and baffling her in the process. If she doesn’t stop immediately, write sentimental poems about how wonderful she is.

A friend once told me that the life of a poet is worth every agonizing moment once you see your words on the page. In your case, it will need to be worth every agonizing moment to not see your daughter’s poems on the page or hear a bar full of scofflaws snapping in admiration at her.

Dr. Perfect has slung advice across the globe for the last two decades due to his dedication to the uplift of the human condition.