how to write a poem, and a new one

How to write a poem?

Someone asked me that question the other day. How to write a poem? Why not "how to eat an apple" or "how to kiss a beautiful woman"? The action cannot be too analyzed, too scripted, lest you fall to craft and hollow actions over a true relishment of the process, the moment, the experience.

Poetry is my muse. Abstra, the queen of my totem muses, is poetry herself, an avatar. As Elizabeth wedded herself to her throne, I have wedded myself to my estates. To me there is the slenderest of membranes between myself and my art, thinner than the slick of wetness between mouths locked in an eternal kiss. I long ago gave myself over to its possession.

It wasn't Jan who lured me from my oaths to Nancy into infidelity, it was Abstra, the muse.

It wasn't Arache or Aurora or the Panther who seduced me from my marriage, it was my poetry, that part of me which is more than religion, more than essence, more than quintessence. A walking dream, leading me to a transcendent state where I am more abstract than real, more spirit than flesh.

And, in the end, it was my obedience to that gentle mistress that lead me to walk away from the wreckage of my second marriage, against my better desires.

So, how to write a poem? Go read a dictionary. If you already have an absurdly prodigious vocabulary, skip around until you hit a word that is new to you and resonates with you. I offer up the word "solferino". Look it up, it has inspired many poems for me, based on different aspects of the word, the history and the meaning,t he sensory invcations and evocations.

Then, use the word in a sentence.

Then throw that sentence out.

Then write a new sentence. Read it aloud, liste to the cadence. If it has not a musical quality to it, through rhythm or the beauty of the melody of the words, throw that one out. Rinse. Repeat.

When you have a sentence that is beautiful, you are ready to start.

Relax. Open your mind. Open your heart. Speak the sentence like a magic spell, unleah the amomancer within you. Have pen and paper or keyboard nearby...you're going to want to keep what boils up from your preconscious.

Look down at the page. See that? That's blood and marrow on paper. Does your soul ache to read it? Does your mind twist in the revelation of the moment? Are you frightened, aroused or ashamed by what it means to you?

Congratulations, you just wrote a poem. You have tasted being a smallgod, a creator. I am proud of you. Now, do it 11,000 times.

I just wrote this, following my own advice (except I took solferino to strike the spark):

spooning in the dark snows

you stir in sheltered shadows, my arms forming cage and armour,
holding you to me before the heat we have summoned fades, shades
stealing light from the solferino fires I kissed and fed and bled
to conflagration that you may take a sip of the pleasure
your mere existence in this sphere brings to me,
sings to me like an unique bird perched on the bare branches
of a winter's tree, reminding me of coming Spring
as it takes wing but leaves behind a feather
to be pressed into my scrapbooked soul
as I listen to your soft murmurs, resting echoes
of the feralities we bartered a few hours ago.
and will again, as my blood quickens
to the touch of your skin.


William F. Devault. all rights reserved.