Tuesday, April 17, 2012

How To Write A Poem

The idea for this poem grew out of a post on Harriet, the blog of the Poetry Foundation. It mirrors almost exactly two other poems I have written, "How To Be A Body" and "How To Tell Time", and so it only seemed natural to extend the theme to a third poem. This is a rough draft of the poem, like "The Museum of Civilization" I feel I will be coming back to significantly edit this poem. But for now, here it is:



HOW TO WRITE A POEM

-after Bhanu Kapil


First, take a bath and rid yourself of the stink of poems. It is a wretched smell and will only frighten other poems away. You will have to fall into it, like a trap.

Build for yourself a workshop, in an abandoned fishhouse, if need be, or a windowless basement room or the passenger seat of your car. Keep every word alive, but keep in mind you will fail somewhere along the line.

Gather around you those things that will feed your orphan mind: a quarter minted in 1968, your grandfather’s leather belt, a brontosaurus fashioned out of tinfoil. Explore the old and the prodigal, all manners of creation. It will come like a dance, the same steps taken with a new partner.

Display your laurels, do not rest upon them. Something is missing. Find it.

If you have the chance, take a trip to the nearest mountaintop on a clear night in mid-August. Observe with all patience you can muster the Perseids—this is heaven’s poetry.

Don’t go asking anyone else to do it for you. Write your poem.

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