The Role of A Poet Mentor in Contemporary Love Poetry

Any contemporary love poet may receive a serious inquiry from someone who is struggling to write contemporary love poetry for the very first time. Quite often, a potential contemporary love poet seeks answers, information or advice from a more experienced contemporary love poet.

This is where the role of a contemporary love poetry mentor begins.  For example, a potential student may have questions about how to write and publish contemporary love poetry.

As a contemporary love poet, you may already have the incentive to become a mentor. You may be willing to mentor a potential contemporary love poet if you recall how the encouragement from another contemporary love poet helped you. You may also remember the initial feelings of excitement triggered by your own poetic inspiration, and how much the encouragement from another contemporary love poet meant to you, at that time.

The potential contemporary love poet may want to be, or become your friend, depending upon how you as a contemporary love poet are able to relate to him or her. Note that it is always important to be positive and constructive in your attitude toward serious inquiries. It is also important to show respect to a potential contemporary love poet making inquiries. Building a friendship is the initial stage in effective mentoring. If you have a potential contemporary love poet who wants to be your friend, you may have found the perfect student to mentor.

Interpersonal relationships are always vital in mentoring relationships. In other words, how you interact together, may be the single most important and ultimate deciding factor with respect to him or her becoming someone you can mentor effectively. You can also become a trusted confidant for a potential contemporary love poet by establishing a mutual trust relationship. Do not betray his or her confidence. Being a confidant is another important aspect of mentoring.

The role of a counselor/adviser comes naturally to some contemporary love poet mentors. Others may benefit from learning advanced counseling techniques and skills in order to teach a contemporary love poet new skills as his or her mentor. There may be numerous obstacles that have  to be overcome in the mentoring process. For example, your student may not be comfortable sharing his or her new love poetry with anyone, or may fear rejection. Many issues or concerns may not be in conjunction with writing contemporary love poetry at all, but rather, obstacles that prevent him or her from actively engaging in writing projects of various kinds, like time constraints.

You may or may not be able to help him or her to resolve all of these issues, but by being a good listener, you may help more than you realize. Perhaps you can guide the potential contemporary love poet in a more positive direction, so that he or she can focus on, and thus pursue his or her contemporary love poetry project.

A new role of counselor/adviser may prove to be an important part of the mentoring process for you, as well. The more you are able to help your prospective student overcome obstacles, the higher the likelihood of his or her success, as well as being a successful mentor/teacher.

Be aware that mentoring can seem to be relatively slow, where only baby steps are taken initially. As your student gradually becomes more confident through your mentoring, it will become possible for him or her to take larger steps and progress more quickly, but everyone learns at a different rate. Setting a pace that is comfortable and appropriate for you and your student is always important.

Being an effective resource person for your student, and knowing how to access other resources with him or her, may prove beneficial, as he or she gradually learns how to find the information he or she needs in order to succeed as a contemporary love poet. Introducing positive, constructive projects may also help to enhance student-mentor relationships, as well.

Don't be surprised when your student outgrows his or her need for mentoring. That just means you have succeeded. Your friendship and love for him or her, as well as contemporary love poetry, has made that possible.