Everyone's a Poet Now!

I don’t like poetry.  I find people’s poems to be self-indulgent, emo, horribly vague and deliberately cryptic.  If you want to tell us how you feel, just say it.

Now, if you want to write an awesome poem that everyone will love, here’s a fun exercise.  Don’t think you know the first thing about writing at all?  Trust me, you can do this. 

STEP 1:  WRITE SOMETHING. 

I don’t care if it’s lame, like:

I woke up today.  Then I brushed my teeth.  I scratched my bum.  I smelt bad, and so I took a shower.  I was hungry.  I made breakfast, but then I had to go to work.

STEP 2:  TRANSLATE IT

The beauty of online translator programs is that they aren’t that good.  Take your writing and copy it into the translator.  Run it through several languages and then back to English.  It will be nothing like what you started with. 

Pick languages that are hard to translate into - like Swahili, or Japanese.  Also, avoid slang, names and swearing.  Some things don’t translate well.  Do what you need to to help the translator along.

I took the above paragraph, and used Google’s translator program.  I ran the writing through twelve languages.  English à Swahili à Chinese à Icelandic à Spanish à Slovak à Catalan à Filipino à Romanian à Latin à Japanese à Danish à English

It looked like this when I was done:

Now that at any time. After the cleaning of teeth. I have struggled with. When I was a smell he asked. I was hungry. Dinner, you're up and running.

STEP 3: CLEAN IT UP

Remember, this is poetry.  It doesn’t have to make sense.  It just has to feel like it’s suppose to.  Do really profound poems ever make sense to you?  Me neither.  I feel like no one will notice the difference.  :-P

So, go ahead.  Clear out words that don’t make sense.  Add what you need to, but try not to change it too much.  Make the words flow even if they mean nothing as a whole.  And remember, break it up into multiple lines.  Poetry is that stuff in books that doesn’t quite reach the margins.

Here’s the final polish:

  

   The Cleaning of Teeth

   Now, at any time, 

   After the cleaning of teeth, 

   I have struggled.

   When I was a smell, he asked. 

   I was hungry. 

   Dinner, you're up and running.

See, pure poetry! 

I’ll write a “real” poem next time around.  In the meantime, try it out.  If you want, share it in the comment field below.  

My poem -->