Unit6HowtoWriteaRottenPoemwithAlmostNoEffort课文翻译综合教程三.doc

Unit 6 How to Write a Rotten Poem with Almost No Effort Richard Howey 1 So you want to write a poem. You’ve had a rotten day or an astounding thought or a car accident or a squalid love affair and you want to record it for all time. You want to organize those emotions that are pounding through your veins. You have something to communicate via a poem but you don’t know where to start. 2 This, of course, is the problem with poetry. Most people find it difficult to write a poem so they don’t even try. What’s worse, they don’t bother reading any poems either. Poetry has become an almost totally foreign art form to many of us. As a result, serious poets either starve or work as account executives. There is no middle ground. Good poets and poems are lost forever simply because there is no market for them, no people who write their own verse and seek out further inspiration from other bards. 3 Fortunately, there is a solution for this problem, as there are for all imponderables. The answer is to make it easy for everyone to write at least one poem in his life. Once a person has written a poem, of whatever quality, he will feel comradeship with fellow poets and, hopefully, read their works. Ideally, there would evolve a veritable society of poet-citizens, which would elevate the quality of life worldwide. Not only that, good poets could make a living for a change. 4 So, to begin, have your paper ready. You must first understand that the poem you write here will not be brilliant. It won’t even be mediocre. But it will be better than 50% of all song lyrics and at least equal to one of Rod McKuen’s best efforts. You will be instructed how to write a four-line poem but the basic structure can be repeated at will to create works of epic length. 5 The first line of your poem should start and end with these words: “In the — of my mind.” The middle word of this line is optional. Any word will do. It would be best not to use a word that has been overdone, such as “wi