How to be a poet. Vishalpatel.com.

How To Be A Poet in Six Easy Steps



So, you woke up one fine day and realised you wanted to express yourself in a deep, meaningful way? You've come to the right place! Or you were just walking around and realised you wanted in on this new fad they're calling "poetry". You've come to the right place too. Or maybe someone told you that poetry isn't just for people in Victorian tights. They're right! And you've come to the right place. Or maybe, just maybe, you think that if you can knock out a halfway decent poem, that hot chick in your building will sleep with you. Boy, are you in the wrong place.

For the rest of you, welcome to an short but intensive course that will change you into poetric geniuses in 6 steps. After reading each step, close your eyes, think about it, and say to yourself 10 times in your mind, "I (your name here) am not a lemming". This will prevent you from making the common but fatal error of committing suicide before you have finished the course. Shall we begin? Yes.
You are not a lemming! This is not who you are!


Lesson 1
It is important that the poem be about something. "Something" in this context can also include "nothing", because the moment you write about nothing, it becomes something. Existentialists can, therefore, go stuff a melon. It is not, however, recommended that you regard a blank page as a poem about nothing, unless you want to make lots of money, in which case you're thinking along the right lines.
The bleak meaninglessness of life


Lesson 2
Choose your subject wisely. You must have enough material to satisfy yourself when you read the finished poem. If you only have some random words floating around in your head, read my tutorial on haikus. Although it is recommended that you feel deeply about the subject, some amount of alienation is paradoxically required to be able to write good poetry. Some poets write their first drafts in a turbulent state, and then revise, prune and shear it when they have their heads about them. The importance of this technique cannot be underestimated: Shelly's "Ode To The West Wind" was initially entitled "Dammit, I Have To Piss" and early drafts of Wordsworth's "The Solitary Reaper" include the lines "and I boffed the bonny horny highland lass"

Lesson 3
Do not stretch a poem out so much that it says everything you want to say. You must leave room for what critics call "reading between the lines". One of the longest poems of recent times was an outpouring of everything the poet ever wanted to say, and was entitled "In love for the 25th time again with a low down bitch who broke my heart and took all my money and now I'm drinking cheap alcohol but its really romantic and my car's the coolest car on the road and what the fuck was I thinking when I got this haircut". This is the kind of writing that will get you shunned by the poetic community and beaten up by Blues musicians for muscling in on their turf.
You don't wanna mess with us, boy


Lesson 4
A poem must have structure. You can choose from the conventional ABAB, AABB or ABCB structure. Poets played around with combinations like this for centuries before hitting on the ABBA in the 1970s, and no one quite remembers what happened next. You may choose to ignore rhymes altogether; this is a good idea if you want your poem to be relaxed, insightful and free from the bondage created by the limitations of the rhyme. Poets call this "free verse". It's also great if you 're just writing the poem to get laid and don't want to waste too much time.

Lesson 5
Poetic virtue is a difficult thing to attain, so if you don't want your poetic license confiscated, you need to shape up, and fast. There are many tips and tricks you can use here, one of which is to take an existing paragraph - any paragraph - and arrange it into a poem. This will give you instant credibility as a poet, and you can create as many poems as you like in a day. For example, let us convert an article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica into a deep poem worth showing off. This poem is constructed verbatim from an article on Llamas.

Llama glama
And the smaller alpaca
The two domesticated species
Of the camel family
Indigenous to South America
Are thought by some authorities
To be derived from the Guanco

A 200-lb llama
Can carry 100 to 130 lb
For a three-week trip
Averaging 15 to 20 miles
Per day

When Llamas are exhausted
They lie down
Hiss
Spit
And kick
Refusing to move until relieved
Of some of the weight
Or until rested sufficiently to continue
The journey

Sheep have largely replaced the llama
As a source of wool
See also references under "Llama"
In the Index.


Lesson 6
Background knowledge: there are many kinds of poems... the Metaphysical, the Pastoral, the Romantic, etc. This can be confusing to a new poet. Never fear. All poems actually consist of one of two things:

a) Getting laid
b) Getting high


Byron and Mariana

Baudelaire - Hashish Self-Portrait


Here's a random sampling:

William Shakespeare - O Mistress Mine (getting laid)
Alexander Pope - Solitude (getting high)
Lord Byron - So, We'll Go No More A-roving (getting laid)
Sir John Suckling - Why So Pale And Wan? (getting high)
John Keats - La Belle Dame Sans Merci (getting laid)
William Wordsworth - I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud (getting high)
Oscar Wilde - The Harlot's House (getting laid)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Kubla Khan (getting very high)
Chrisopher Marlowe - The Passionate Shepherd to His Love (getting laid. With a sheep.)
Robert Burns - To A Mouse (getting high)
Henry Carey - Sally In Our Alley (getting laid)
Edward Lear - The Owl and the Pussy-Cat (getting high. Or possibly laid)
Orrick Johns - Wild Plum (getting laid)
Walt Whitman - Leaves Of Grass (getting high)
Robert Browning - My Last Duchess (getting laid)
A.E. Housman - When Smoke Stood Up From Ludlow (getting high)


Congratulations!!
you are now a poet. Sooner or later, people will see you writing, and will ask you, "Are you a poet?" On no occasion must you EVER say "Yes", as this will automatically disqualify you. Here, instead, are some approved answers.

"Aren't we all?"
"I write because, if I don't, I think I shall go mad"
"I guess I'm just looking for my muse" (to be said to attractive member of opposite sex)
"Don't try and classify me"
"I don't know, I guess I just see things differently... take the llama, for example"
"Maybe, but I can still kick your ass" (to be said to member of same sex, if male)
"Let's make hot, steamy love" (to be said to member of same sex, if female)
"I (your name here) am not a lemming"
Dammit, don't define me! This is not who I am!