Lower Umpqua Type-A Poet Screening Inventory
by
Mark Worden
Directions: Just answer the following questions True or False. Be
honest. Make a fearless and searching inventory.
- I cannot go a week without writing poetry.
- I frequently have lurid fantasies about writing poetry and getting it in print and
reading it before large and appreciative audiences.
- Writing poetry has sometimes interfered with my work.
- I have lost friends because of my poetry-writing habits and my poetry.
- Sometimes I have a strange and unaccountable memory loss or time lapses when I write
poetry, and I awaken not knowing what I wrote, how I wrote it, or how I got to bed.
- I have sometimes written more than two poems a day, or two or three books of verse a
year.
- My spouse, family, or friends have made polite comments about my poetry, or they have
expressed concern about my preoccupation with poetry and my lack of interest in
“earning a living” and my indifference to “the real world”.
- I get flushed and feel euphoric when I see my poetry in print.
- There are times when I have gone on a writing binge and written poetry on more than
three consecutive days.
- I sometimes worry that I have an incurable itch to write.
Scoring
If you scored 2 “Yes” on this quiz, you may be a Beginning
Type-A Poet. You may slow down or arrest the progression of the affliction by
becoming poetry-free, or by adherence to a controlled writing regimen and limiting
yourself to writing one poem (or less) a month.
If you scored 3 to 5 “Yes”, you are a Problem Poet with unmistakable
Type-A Poet symptoms and you should seek professional help, or join a self help group,
such as Poets Anonymous (PA). Most authorities recommend that the best regimen for Type-A
Poets is to abstain from writing altogether. Type-A Poets typically suffer from denial,
and are often heard to mutter, “Just one poem won't hurt.”
If you scored over 5 “Yes”, you are a Chronic Undifferentiated
Type-A Poet, and you should be placed in quarantine, for the sake of public health and
to insure the continued survival of the hallowed institution of Poetry. Naturally writing
instruments should be withheld, although it is difficult to keep the truly obsessed Type-A
Poet from scratching verse in the earth or sand with a sly, trembling digit. Some
gesticulate madly in attempts to write “air poetry.”
In its most insidious and fulminating manifestation—virtually
incurable—the Type-A Poet continues to write inner poetry—poetry in his head—whereupon
the poet, his eye in a fine frenzy rolling, doth glance from heaven to
earth, from earth to heaven, and as
imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown, the Type-A poet's
brain turns them to shapes, and gives to airy
nothings a local habitation and a name.
 CAUTION: Type-A Poets may experience withdrawal when going “cold turkey,” and
it is suggested that withdrawal should be ameliorated with mild muscle-relaxants,
acupuncture, MTV, video immersion therapy or other medically supervised treatment.
The Lower Umpqua Type-A Screening Inventory was
developed at the Lower Umpqua Addictive Conundrum Institute, Director Dr. Lemuel Quark.
The LUTASI has a reliability coeffecient of .89, validity .95, using a sample
population of 4.5 poets. Due to the ubiquity of poets, it was impossible to procure
a NonPoet control group.
©1999, 2000 Mark Worden, Morris Street Writers Group
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