How to Write a Poem for a Journal

Pick a title with a geographical reference: followed with an allusion to a famous poet beginning with a gerund phraseif possible a work in a painting. Always include a clever epigram, preferably in another language:

Saturday Evening in Midwinter on the Banks of the Rhine: Recounting Mid-afternoon Tea With Williams and Owens While Staring at a Poster of Baroccis Aeneas Flees Burning Troy

Aut viam inveniam aut faciam Hannibal

Start out with some allusionsdont be afraid to drop a few names. Use arbitrary white space and elitist coffee drinks.

It was cold out, said Derrida, unsure of himselfmuch too cold to discuss Feynman and Fibonaccis ideas of perfection. The cold Polar easterly winds chilled my biodegradable cup of Austrian goat milk triple-half-caf-half-decaf-soy-milk-with-a-dash-of Madagascar cinnamon. Bought (of course) at the fair trade coffee shop. The one with the paint blotch art pieces with profanity etched in the thick black paint.

Introduce a familial character, the ethnic one, this time mention a famous but not obvious location.

My Mesopotanian half-uncle who was also part Mayan was buried alone on his favorite hill on the Isle of Man where he used to tell me stories about (real) poetry, from men who ate meat. We sang an Assyrian love song.

Include some personal memories tying the allusions to life. Play with the language and form a little.

In the second year of my eighth grade education, Mrs. Fish exposed me to Dickinson the first time and I realized that writingpoetry wassimple Go, goes, going, gone, long gone, long john, john wayne, pain, regain, regal, beagle, bagle all wheat with whole-grain fiber to aid digestion.

Start to add in more about how life is a metaphor, an allusion.

love seems like a t s eliot poem written by e e cummings and edited by Amy Lowell not Robert Lowell can also i order out write of poetry itches. Pollock challenged Nero to a dance-off with Mozart as judge my half-Uncle, Lloyd Burns, recorded the fight with his camera phonehome, come on home is where the heart is. (just flush once a day) Plath and Sexton play Russian Roulette with all the bullets still in the gun while Pound steals Nietzsches umbrella; They say the Rhine might freeze over this year There is no Babylonian word for tears.

With a bit of subtlety, deepen the allusion, the essence of life contained in words. Include something environmental

For the conclusion, weave together all the elements like a tapestry, always unwinding.