On Writing Poetry

I am able no longer
- to juxtapose these words into coherence
The implications, they strike me into rumination.

Peradventure, that which diminishes
- is my capacity for remembrance.
Peradventure, that which lies beyond me
- is this lexicon, and its discernment.

Or, these faculties, do they unravel?
- the mind, does it perceive it's own end?

The hour of my leavetaking, it's finally upon me.

Perhaps, like how the teeming millions of its fans keep insisting that you only need to have it once more before beer stops tasting like fermented dingo urine, poetry's just an acquired taste, because I often don't get it at all.
Perhaps, all this post will show is that there's a part of the brain that's for poetry processing and I either never had it, or a surgeon lobotomized it for an evening snack.

Anyway, since I never did get poetry, paradoxically, I'm convinced I know what it's all about. So much so that I came up for a brilliant algorithm that you can use to poem-ify any collection of well.. anything you can think of. Here's how it works.

1. Write something, anything.

I cannot think of a sentence.

2. Take each word in the sentence that's not a pronoun or an article, take out a thesaurus, find all synonyms you can, and replace with the biggest match. If you don't find any bigger synonyms or you just don't happen to like the ones you find (because they aren't weighty enough, naturally), replace such words with phrases of three words or more.

I am no longer able to juxtapose words into coherence.

3. Move some words around, add a comma here, a hyphen there. Do NOT put in full stops. You aren't ready for those yet. If you're wondering whether you're acting like a three year old, you aren't. You're being creative, so get on with the Yoda-ing.

I am able no longer

- to juxtapose these words into coherence.

4. Here's a tip you should brand on the poetry centres of your brain: anything that might under any conceivable circumstance be mistaken for humour, GET RID OF IT!
5. Now, pick a theme from the Emo Manual. Haven't heard of it? Don't worry, that little book's a part of our genome. Just take a deep breath, think about that Oscar movie you watched some time ago, that girl in class four you wrote reams of passionate (unread) love letters to, it'll all come out.
6. If you're still having problems, here're some pointers. 'Loss' is emore than er.. 'chocolates'. 'Death' - quite possibly the emost of the lot, be very, very careful - is emore than say, your bristly toothbrush.
7. Now that you're all ready with a theme, think of how you can transform what you've written down into a sentence that's vaguely related to your theme. If it's already kinda sorta like your theme, you're done. One line poems are gold in the world of poetry - the amount of angst you'd have packed into a handful of words would almost make it a WMD.

I am able no longer
- to juxtapose these words into coherence.

I wonder why that is.

Perhaps my memory's failing me.

Perhaps I never knew this language at all.

Or perhaps it's dementia.

I'm dying.

8. Well, all you have to do now is apply transformations 2, 3 (and a few more I'll list below) to all the other sentences until your tear ducts start to approve.
9. A tip: there's nothing more poetic than transforming the full stop at the end of a sentence into a question mark. With that little change, you'll suddenly have profundity oozing out of every syllable. Don't overdo it though - having every line end with a question will make your poem look like a pop quiz, and that's never good.

Or, these faculties, do they unravel?
- the mind, does it perceive its own end?

10. Don't do rhymes unless it's going to be that kind of a poem. Remember 4)
11. Archaic words sound more poetic. That's not a thumb rule, that's a fact of nature. 'Peradventure' sounds tons more poetic than boring old 'perhaps'.

Peradventure, that which diminishes
- is my capacity for remembrance.

12. Repeat words, repeat phrases, repeat whole sentences if your poem is long enough. Each new occurrence will have the rather curious effect of making all the earlier occurrences appear more poetic.

You're almost there - ready to roam the wild, free and unfettered. But oh, one last thing.

13. Never, ever, neverever forget to italicize your poem's text! There's something indescribably poetic, something deeply touching, something unutterably Emo about reading sloped text.