It's widely recorded that, in an interview with the Paris Review in 1956(?), Hemingway stated that he'd felt the need to rewrite the final page of Farewell to Arms 39 times. When asked what the problem had been, he replied 'getting the words right'. Of course that's important, as in the first flush of creation it's very easy to overlook an infelicity that will jar on one (and on the subsequent reader) later. For example, I wrote a verse in which, initially, stand and understand, although not as a terminal rhyme, were too close together for comfort. Replacing understand with apprehend solved the problem, but that only occurred to me some time later, and after reading the verse aloud.

Even more important, though, is getting the ideas right. One can easily shoot oneself in the foot (originally an intentional act of self-mutilation to escape the 1914-18 war trenches) – thereby thwarting one's meteoric rise (actually they don't, they fall) to poetic stardom – by inclusion of faulty allusion, simile or analogy. Common parlance is littered with aphorisms that don't make sense on close examination for the simple reason that they don't reflect reality. So in addition to the two already perpetrated, let's examine a few more.

It's frequently stated that some act or event that failed to impress went down like a lead balloon. But a lead balloon, being too heavy, goes down very well indeed – it's up that it can't cope with.

Then there's the venerable bee-line (Edgar Allan Poe 1849), supposedly meaning to take the shortest route between two points. But from years of watching bees I can assure you that bees don't do that. They either meander erratically and rapidly around the general direction of flight or they trace multiple successive sinuous arcs through the air towards the destination.

And finally, when two people wish to pass each other in a narrow passage, one frequently hears 'breath in!'. which is of course exactly the opposite of what's required, as breathing in expands the chest, causing one to take up more room.

We all let such fallacies pass in everyday discourse, but as poets we're obligated to be more careful if we seek recognition and permanence for our works. So my advice is – however neat the analogy, simile or whatever seems, do your homework. Make sure what you've written makes sense in the real world. Unless of course you're intentionally departing into some fantastic alternative realm. But in that case, don't expect too many perceptive readers to join you there.