The Jack Getz Instant Poetry Workshop

Aw c'mon. Let's not beat up on the poets...it's just too damn easy, with the possible exception of those angry Dylan Thomas-types who, in the initial "angry drunk" phase can be dangerous for at least five minutes before they fall over. Instead of beating poets up....why not become one?

Now you can, thanks to the JACK GETZ INSTANT POETRY WORKSHOP!

It's easy! And the first workshop is free!

[Insert Susan B. Anthony dollar to continue.]

Thank you!

For your first lesson, please select from the three following poetypes:

Attack of the Diarrheic Thesaurus with a Phony English Accent (Guys! The phony English accent is a BABE MAGNET!!!!)  Latinate words always a plus here, stick with the abstract, avoid anything that might create a word picture.

Do your best William F Buckley imitation and follow the bouncing ball ...

tenuous diffidence

betrays the interstices of confusion

parallax of incidents

detained

in unreliable memory

Metonymy of monotony

[Continue to make shit up. You get the idea.]

Find a suitable coffee shop for your first practice exercise. Read slowly, hypnotically. Keep it up for another 15 minutes or so and they'll be so glad you're done they'll call you a genius and you can start giving "Poetry Workshops" and charging money for it. (And be sure to bring pen and a pad for those phone numbers!)

If you have not been laid or been giving a college fellowship, please choose from one of the two remaining options:

Is it Charles Bukowski...or is it Memorex?

Think "angry young man." If you're no longer young, "angry" still works. Are you angry? Good! Now tuck in your scrotum and approach the mic. But first ...

If you're doing a live reading, remember not to shave for at least two days beforehand (I know this doesn't work for chicks...but there's always burnt cork, right?). Stick to walk-on-the-wild-side urban references (get a "Village Voice" and you're in business!), mumble, and make sure to say "shit, piss, fuck" every three lines or so. (Extra points for white people if you throw in a few lines of bad rap.)

This kind of thing works great in yer basic Barnes &Noble reach-out-to-the-community poetry readings. The embarrassed pencil-neck Manager will come up and whisper in your ear that you have to stop. You can tell 'em to fuck off. He or she will throw you out, and you can tell the town how they censored you. Edgy, huh? Just remember to talk louder than the deafening cappuccino machine.

Intrigued? Good!

Now do your best Tom Waits imitation and read the following poem ...

shit, piss, fuck

drunk whores fucking dogs

in alleys of broken glass

a junkie screams like a needle

up the ass

in the black dead vein of the city

New York Post newsprint

mixing with blood and semen

in the back of a taxi

message scrambled

like another new retrovirus

mutant RNA

that will fuck you

you, you, you

fuck you

Shit piss fuck

Ah. Judging by your black eyes and your tape-swaddled nose, your initial bad boy poetry reading was not a success. Yeah. About that. I forgot to mention that you can't do badass poetry without actually being a badass. Or the audience will hurt you. I did mention that your deposit is nonrefundable. But one more option remains ...

Pretentious College Poetry Workshop and all that Shit

Explaining this is like explaining how you wipe your ass. It seems self-evident, but I'll spell it out anyway.

The trick is, write a personal essay but set the line breaks like a poem. Tug on the heartstrings with weepy incidents of childhood trauma, "I remember mama" anecdotes (no one will dare to say it's a bad poem if it's about your mama!) and Cliff Notes Joycean epiphanies that even YOU don't have to understand. Because it's poetry.

Try to talk like in the singsong tones of an undertaker. As a visualization exercise, imagine you're speaking to the inhabitants of a nursing home. Chances are, you will be.

Be sure to read slowly....

There were different colors

Then

The refrigerator

Was avacado

The countertops

Were screaming orange

Mother your hands were

Flesh-colored

Without the spots

They didn't shake

Your hands I remember

Them always

Holding and folding

Towels

Turning the pages

Of

The Wild Things

Putting a compress

On your eye

O cold, cold, comfort

Where the bruise was

Blue and red and mottled

It's all right you said

I ran into a door

The color of lying!

I did not know

I did not know

I did not know

The door was Father!


OK, if they still hate you, here's one last option. This one's free. Don't call again.

The GUMBY poem.

Bandage your head. Hold one brick in your left hand. Hold another brick in your right hand. Then scream ...

violence is bad because it like hurts people its bad if you see a violent person make them stop take two bricks and bang them on the side of their head and shout at them STOP IT STOP THE VIOLENCE STOP STOP THE VIOLENCE STOP STOP STOP VIOLENT PERSON VIOLENT PERSON that makes them stop but it gets the bricks messy

Hit yourself in the head with the bricks until the audience applauds.