This is for those of you who have written to us and asked, “How do you two write such fashionable poems? How are your poems more fashionable today than they were when you first began writing them over eleven and a half years ago?” If you’d like to know more about this — more about poetry, fashion, and fashionable poetry, then this is for you. Below, you’ll find our secrets to writing Poems of Fashion. These are our things. These are all of the things you will need.
Fashionable Poem Tip the Ninth
A few weeks ago, Vivienne was on a very long drive, the speedometer’s arrow stroking the side of 80, the drought-sickened trees blurring into one long stripe of gray, when she suddenly called Zelda. The following conversation, or one quite like it, ensued:
Zelda: Well hello! And welcome to my phone!
Vivienne: Well hello! And welcome to my obsession with Dolly Parton! I just listened to “Jolene” six times in a row and I’m calling you so I don’t listen to it a seventh time.
Zelda: OH MY GOD JOLENE JOLENE.
From this conversation, or the one which occurred which was quite like it (and it is actually quite possible that several such conversations occurred, as Vivienne is wont to listen to “Jolene” repeatedly these days), it became obvious that “Jolene” is a Most Fashionable Song of Fashion. Oh, Jolene! You auburn-haired vixen, with your eyes of emerald green! Hear how Dolly, at the height of her great fashion, pleads with you! Hear how Dolly is beggin’ of you please don’t take her man! Hear how Dolly, all the time, knows the pleading is no good! Because you’ve already gotten him, Jolene! He talks about you in his sleep! There’s nothing Dolly can do to keep from cryin’, when he calls your name, Jolene! And yet, and yet, Dolly had to have this talk with you, Jolene, Jolene, Jo-leee-eeene. Which leads us directly to the Fashionable Poem Tip of Fashion: poetry is urgency. Poetry is what needs to be said, what has to be said, what we are driven to say, even if we know the saying of it won’t stop what’s happening or what’s happened or what will happen. Poetry is the urge, and urge, and urge, always procreant urge of the world.
(And there’s an extra Fashionable Poem Tip of Fashion embedded in this video, which is this: Everything is more fashionable in a purple jumpsuit.)
Fashionable Poem Tip the Eighth
Zelda and Vivienne, we know you are, at this point, saying, you’ve shown us Fashionable Music. You’ve
shown us Fashionable Music Videos. You’ve shown us Fashionable Fashion. But what, O Zelda and Vivienne, is a Film of Fashion? Where in the celluloid jungle can we look for Fashionable Poem Tips / Poem Tips of Fashion?
This is a question easily answered: William Castle’s 1964 masterpiece, Strait-Jacket, starring the one, the only, the very heavily eyebrowed Joan Crawford. See how Joan indicates Lucy’s transformation from reformed psychopath to (possibly — I can say no more, as Joan Crawford has urged me to not reveal the surprise, shock ending) relapsed psychopath with a simple flick of a cigarette and jangle of absurdly large charm bracelets! See how Joan Crawford is led down this dangerous dangerous path of psychopathdom by donning a most fabulous Wig of Fashion! See how, through the power of gesturing and holding her eyes slightly more open, a sixty-year-old Joan Crawford is able to convince us that she is, at the absolute oldest, 49; at the youngest, 29.
The Fashionable Poem Tip of Fashion is this: the poet a master of disguise and transformation. Don your wigs and light your cigs, and never forget to lie about your age.
There is, of course, a Corollary to this Fashionable Poem Tip of Fashion: treasure mystery. Create mystery where there is actually no mystery. Even though the end is inevitable, pretend the end is not inevitable. Do not reveal the surprise, shock ending.
Fashionable Poem Tip the Seventh.
Nina. Nina Garcia. Nina Garcia of fashionable Project Runway fame. Garcia is was (Apparently she was fired from her position in April! Just last month! Nina! Nina Garcia! Nina Garcia of fashionable Project Runway fame! How will Heidi Klum ever introduce you now?) the fashion director for Elle magazine.
Garcia, having had the fashion directorial position at Elle magazine for some time, is used to having people follow her word when it comes to Fashion. What, then, can we as Poets of Fashion / Fashionable Poets learn from Garcia? Well, let’s take a look at the illustration below.
Note Brenda Dickson’s closet on the left! Note Nina Garcia’s closet on the right! Note the similarities! This means, Dear Reader, that even fashion directors / directors of fashion are able to see the (and please forgive me here, Dear Reader), ah, Points of View of others when necessary! Nina Garcia has obviously modeled her Closet of Fashion after Brenda Dickson’s Most Fashionable Closet. The Fashionable Poem Tip / Poem Tip of Fashion that comes from this is: always keep your eyes open. If a Fashion Director for a Fashionable Magazine can glean from a Fashionable Ex-Soap Star, then we as poets can learn from, say, episodes of Cops, or movies like Dawn of the Dead.
Fashionable Poem Tip the Sixth.
When a Fashionable Poet / a Poet of Fashion presents her work, she should aim to have her audience react in certain ways. In the video below, the Most Fashionable Britney Spears illustrates the ways the Fashionable Poet’s audience should react. Below the video, we have interpreted a few of Britney’s exclamations. For posterity’s sake.
“What are you doing you’re zoomin’ in you’re doin’ somethin’ weird!” — If Britney were to utter this at a poetry reading, she would really mean this: “I’ve never seen life from this point of view before! Looking at the world from this angle makes me somewhat uneasy, but I must admit that my eyes feel as if they’ve been opened for the first time. This must mean this poetry is edgy. Edgy poetry is Fashionable Poetry!”
“Stop lookin’ through the peephole!” — Were Britney to say this at the end of a reading, she’d mean: “The voyeuristic tendencies that the speaker of this poem possesses are quite intriguing. The ‘view through the peephole’ affords the poem an intimate feel, and the actual distance between the poem’s speaker and the action in the poem creates a very powerful poetic friction. Well done, Poet of Fashion. Well. Done.”
“Where have I been?” — If Britney said this, she’d mean: “I feel as if I’m a little lost. When did poetry turn the corner and turn into Fashionable Poetry? It’s hard for me to follow, but each image is like a diamond heart necklace at the end of a rainbow! Give me more!”
“Huh?” — Britney means: “I really want to hear this poem again. It is a Poem of Fashion! A Fashionable Poem!”
“Huh?!” — With this exclamation, Britney actually means: “Huh?!” But it is a positive huh?!; it is a Fashionable Huh?!
Fashionable Poem Tip the Fifth.
In the Most Fashionable Video for “Violet,” the juxtapositions of young girls against grown women, the ballet’s high culture against the strip club’s smeared lipstick, and the violence Courtney Love inflicts upon herself by slapping her own face against the frenetic and violent energy of the mosh pit are all played out in front of an actual male gaze. Really. I mean, the audiences we see in the video are full of men, and they’re enjoying every second of each performance like it’s nobody’s business.
Fashion is drrty. Fashion is pretty. Fashion is Courtney Love. Poems of Fashion, then, must include edgy juxtapositions, drrty things, pretty things, and Courtney Love. Just watch the video; it will explain EVERYTHING.
Fashionable Poem Tip the Fourth.
Listen to the words of wisdom from Top Chef Head Judge of Fashion, Fashionable and Fashionably Hot Chef Tom Colicchio. Everything that springs forth from Tom Colicchio’s Mouth of Wisdom can be applied to Fashionable Poetry. Take for instance what Tom Colicchio says about properly seasoning food: “Without salt and pepper, the most beautifully prepared dish is going to taste like garbage.” From this, Fashionable Poets learn that it doesn’t matter how beautiful a poem looks on the page if the poem itself is, well, garbage. Tom Colicchio also says that to win a certain challenge, the chefs on Top Chef “didn’t need to cook French food, or demonstrate perfect French technique. Rather, they had to show that they could make good food. Period.” Fashionable Poets know that Tom Colicchio is really saying that it doesn’t matter if a poet masters New Formalism, Neo-Narrativism, etc., because the poem is not going to be deemed important by anyone — the poem is not going to be deemed a Poem of Fashion — if the poem is not a good poem. Period.
All hail Tom Colicchio, Top Chef of Fashion! See how he holds his guitar! See how he, without a stitch of hair on his head and a huge grin on his fashionable face, is the foil for the Most Fashionable Slash!
Fashionable Poem Tip the Third.
Next up is the most fashionable Power Ballad of Fashion, “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” sung by the God of Fashionable Rock himself, Bret Michaels. The story behind this Fashionable Power Ballad is a very important one for the Fashionable Poet. “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” was released in 1988. Nearly twenty years later, in 2007’s Rock of Love: Season One (starring none other than Bret Michaels), Bret Michaels is hesitant to name Heather the “Dancer” (remember Heather? remember Heather of the wild, glorious, fashionable hair?) his Rock of Love because his heart was broken by the woman for whom “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” was written — a woman who was also a “dancer.” In a 2003 VH1 interview, Bret Michaels, when asked if he ever gets tired of playing “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” replies: “The reason I never get sick of playing it is I am so angry and bitter about the stripper who f*cked me over and who I knew in my soul would never cheat on me, but did. Every time I sing it I’m stabbing her in the heart.”
This story is incredibly important to the Fashionable Poet because it is our duty as Poets of Fashion to create poems that will illicit from ourselves — even decades after we have written them — the same type of primitively visceral reaction Bret Michaels experiences each time he plays “Every Rose Has Its Thorn.”
Fashionable Poem Tip the Second.
Another important part of Fashionable Poetry is the viewing and re-viewing of the video below. This is the Ultimate Music Video of Fashion, as it encompasses all the bitter angsts, universal joys, public sorrows, and secret griefs that we, as a collective whole, can handle. In this video, Slash personifies the successful poem hiding inside each of us by literally walking the line between the sacred and the profane as he walks out of the church and into the churchyard. See how Slash must leave the sanctuary of the church in order to fully express his raw emotion! See how he wails on his guitar in the churchyard to make us understand the depths of what he feels!
Fashionable Poem Tip the First.
There are a few things to keep in mind when writing Poems of Fashion / Fashionable Poems. First, you must always wear your Fashion Face / your Face of Fashion. And who better than to teach you how to wear your Fashion Face / your Face of Fashion than the Face of Fashion herself, Brenda Dickson? Due to pesky copyright laws, her Ultimate Video of Fashion has been recently removed from YouTube (the horror! the horror!), but you may view it on Brenda Dickson’s website. This video is a very important part of Fashionable Poetry. Watch it often. Brenda teaches us that unique parts make a unique whole. For instance, one can make a run-of-the-mill narrative poem quite fashionable by piling on accessories of fashion, such as crystal earrings, a fox, a matching hat, or — the most fashionable of all fashion accessories — the coveted diamond heart necklace.
All hail the Face of Fashion! All hail Brenda Dickson!
