Experiment with Words and Your Brain

(from teachgoodwriting.blogspot.com) I just had to share it cuz it's awesome!

A Poetry Experiment

Ed Pacht wrote, "You know, the very existence of a word is a powerful attack upon randomness. Every word or phrase, even a bit of nonsense like 'slithy tove', is a purposeful ordering of reality to an end. I'd say further that it is impossible for a single human mind to make a truly random selection among words. One's brain is, it would seem, wired so as to make connections, even when they are not apparent. Actually, the list I worked from, if I'd found it without attribution, would have made me think of a personality much like what I've come to know of yours. I would not/could not have made that selection myself. Writing the poem actually felt like taking a journey with Alice into her own wonderland."

This caused me to wonder what would happen were Ed to provide me with a random list. Would I create a poem that reflects his inner world? So I proposed an experiment and he wrote back with his list and said: "You're on -- as random as I could make it. A couple of them popped into my head. I randomly did page roulette on a thesaurus, a dictionary, my BCP, my Bible, and a couple of books I've been reading. Even so, the choice can't be entirely random as what was chosen is whatever caught my attention during the process -- and my attention is uniquely mine."

Here is Ed's list: tinder-box --magic-lantern slides--peace offerings--semi-transparency--tabernacle--headstone--visible sign--careful observations--gaunt little man--leaping lizard--hearing impaired--attention deficit--waterfall--bright image--spring pollen--bouquet--diamond sheen

And here is the poem I wrote. I wasn't able to use the phrase: magic-lantern slides.


Athos Tabernacle
Alice C. Linsley

Gaunt little man in monkish garb
beside his hermit house sits
in contemplation of the headstone moon
streaming light on his bearded face.

From gnarled fingers flow whispered prayers,
a waterfall of beads on a black cord with a diamond sheen.
At prayer, attention deficit, though not hearing impaired,
He strikes a bright image of semi-transparency.

Careful observations of high soaring hawks and leaping lizards
Of spring pollen from earth’s bouquet,
He too is a visible sign of Heaven’s peace offerings,
His soul a tinderbox for the Divine Fire.

Sonnet

To be loved in a time of cholera
To be seen in a world of fallen doves
Is a wish that I have for all of us
A wish on behalf of the one who loves.

There’s a girl who cries in her bed at night
For the things she’s seen and the hope that dies.
And no outside world points her to the light
Cause the outside world binds her to its lies.

No but she won’t break, she won’t fall away.
There’s a dove in her mind, she won’t waste time.
She’ll stand up and say, “I’m here for this day”
“This dove will now fly, I’ll follow his rhyme”.

She flies from the deep valley’s of her mind
She flies to a new place where all is kind.

A few poems

I wanted to write some haiku's but instead of the 575 structure, these are 747, after thinking about jumbo jets. i like jumbo jets because they take us to far away places. so thank you to all the jumbos out there in the sky.

I love to see so much love,
an elephant,
Feeding hippo as her own.

That lake use to have water.
Now it's dead fish,
Lined against the craggy shore.

She was quiet in the dark,
but with lamp,
teeth spread, an orotund sound.

I think when we give ourselves a specific set of rules to follow or apply some form of structure to our words, it can actually be quite freeing in the creative process. It allows us to have something to focus on, which I think really helps us to express ourselves. Otherwise it is just like a madman letting any and everything pour out, which isn't bad either. I guess it's just about whatever works for the individual, and for me, I can work either way.