HOW TO WRITE A POEM

Friday, March 26, 2010

HOW TO WRITE A POEM

By Philip Cairns

Copyright 2010 by Philip Cairns

Never use the word “I” in a poem.
“I”, as in, “I am so deliciously happy.”
It’s too personal.
Not intellectual enough.

Your audience only wants to hear obscure, abstract concepts,
Like love and romance
And things that even you, the writer, can’t comprehend.
People don’t want to hear your fears and secrets.
They like to hear about inanimate things,
Like daffodils or starfish or sunsets.

If your audience doesn’t understand your poem,
They will be ecstatic.
People with University degrees can sit around at Starbucks
Discussing what you really meant when you wrote,
“Epiphanies of pink sunsets
Dithered by sheltering orange umbrellas
In dire juxtapositions.”

Of course, they will be totally wrong in their interpretations.
They’ll never know that you were being devious.
You deliberately wrote some silly nonsense,
To confuse and stimulate them.

Get out your Thesaurus, writers.
Open the dictionary.
Find words that no one has heard of,
Like “genitive”.
Stick that in your poem.
That’ll thrill your audience.

Don’t write:
“I felt so desperately lonely when I was young.”
Mix it up to confound them.
Write: “Young felt desperately I,
When confound them lonely was.”
You will be helping teachers all over the world.

In English class when they study your poem,
And of course they will,
It will give teachers a chance to include an essay question
Asking students what the poet really meant
When he, or she, wrote those lines.

“Gibbering giblets glopping glockenspiels
In tethered tinkling tantrums over tittering tetracycline.”
What is the poet getting at?
I don’t have a clue.
But that’s what it’s all about, people.

Of course, there’s no need to mention the “f” word
In your poetry, either.
People have been known to mess their pants
When they hear that word at poetry readings.
Perhaps you, the poet, could sell “Depends” diapers,
As well as your chapbooks,
At the merchandise table.
You will become even richer.

Yes, keep them guessing.
Don’t write:
“I attempted suicide when I was 16”.
That’s too simple and concise.
Reality will shock them.
Try this, instead:
“Suicide was a silly anachronism,
When 16 was a bricklayer’s paradigm.”

What does it mean?
Who knows?!
Let the audience figure it out.
That’s their job.
Or give it to your professor.
Get her to explain it to you.

Well, that’s it for today.
Thank you.
Boy, I really fucking enjoyed that.