"How
Poetry is Done" by Dean Blehert
You can make any sentence poetical
by mentioning blood or bone.
For example, instead of "Yesterday
I went to the store," say "Yesterday
I went to the blood and bone store."
Instead of "The moon rose," say
"The blood moon rose" or "A bone
of moon rose" or, best, "A bone
of blood moon rose." For "I love you"
try "Bone and blood I love you."
Bone and blood are instant intense.
For profound, add in an inapplicable
abstraction, such as "geometry" or
"calculus," or a scientific reference
like "hologram" or "ecology," and
throw in a juicy verb. For example,
"The geometry of blood laments
this hologram of bone." But intense
and profound are not enough. You need
an ironic (hip) sense of mortality, as in "Chanting
its inevitable theorems in every fatty cell,
the geometry of blood laments this
fading hologram of bone" except that
"theorems" makes too much sense
with "geometry," so change "theorems"
to "charade" (not "singsong," which
makes too much sense with "chanting").
This gives us a satisfactory
Twentieth Century poem written
in a fresh unique authoritative etc. voice,
especially if the line lengths
are a bit weird, for example:
Chanting
its inevitable charade
in every fatty cell
the geometry of blood
laments this fading
hologram of
bone
Entitle it Collage #7 and send it
right out to a very little magazine
or anything that ends in "REVIEW."
Joan Houlihan's essay:
The Sound of One Wing Flapping:
The Art of the Poetry Blurb
on Del Sol (http://webdelsol.com/f-bostoncomment.htm)
Is a wonderful accompaniment to the above poem. Try it for a
treat.
