The business world runs on caffeine, exploited labor and flow charts, so exploit your own mental labor to make a flow chart explaining the causal relationship of the donut on your worldview (and don’t neglect the oxymoron of the edible “donut hole”), the decision making process for breaking a line in your poems, the predetermined linear progression of excuses you develop if choosing to cross the line or walk back a line in your writing or life, or perhaps the decision process for what can be safely flushed without overflowing on the bathroom floor. Be weird, be logical, get in the flow. 

For inspiration, listen to Jared Singer read his “The Engineer Makes a Flow Chart” published and uploaded by Button Press. Or you can read John Ashberry’s epic poem Flow Chart.

After you write your flow chart, describe it in a poem. To get you started, here are flow charts on various subjects. Use them for inspiration to write for your own flow chart and corresponding poem or perhaps skip the first step and write a response to them as your poem.  It is all good. 

The first is from a Book Riot article celebrating April as National Poetry Month by reading a poem and the critical decision making process of what to read. Even better, the article provides links to all the poems!

If you want to delve into social issues and the horror that is social media, check out Kim Goodwin’s flow chart on mansplaining in the workplace, which she created in response to colleagues’ requests for help. Click on the link for her original tweet and to follow her on Twitter (her Twitter handle is @kimgoodwin)

It is sad that the next flow chart seems to be necessary. Marcia Langton created this flow chart, but I found it through Kim Goodwin’s retweet. Click on the link to follow Marcia Langton (her handle is @marcialangton).

Good luck, everybody!