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Mockingbird
Do not start with,
"If May is the month of the mockingbird,
September is the season of the dove."
After you have not written this,
take a break. Check mail. Delete message
from the ousted African Prince
who wants to deposit his fortune into your
bank account for safekeeping.
If they ask you where you've published,
say your poetry is "forthcoming."
Try an epithalamium-"for Rich & Sarah"-
Good for pulling you out of a slump.
Start, "If May is the month of the mockingbird,
September is the season of the dove."
Click on Marla Meehan, who wants to "increase your size"
(she never answers your e-mails). Select a poem
in a language you don't know
and write a translitic (verde = bare day).
Make a list of everything in your house
that is solitary, cold, and contemplative,
including yourself. Change the font and write
a long letter protesting a parking ticket.
It should begin, "If May is the month of the mockingbird…"
There you go, it's starting to come.
You're waking up from your life.
Richard N. Bentley is a graduate of Yale and the Vermont College Writing Program.
His recent book of poems and short stories, Post-Freudian Dreaming and A General Theory of
Desire are available from amazon.com. He was a winner of the Paris Review/Paris Writers
Workshop International Fiction Award in 1994. He can be contacted at rbentley@valinet.com
or www.dickbenley.com. for comments, suggestions, advice or for no reason at all. He teaches at Holyoke College.
Email: Richard N. Bentley
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