surreal poetry, poetry forum - poems from 30th April 2011

poetry forum - poems and prose from 30th April 2011

For April's Poetry Forum meeting, we decided to play some Surrealist style collaborative writing games, to produce some poetry and prose.

The games we played were:

for numbers 1,6,10: the first player chooses 2 pairs of rhyming words, folds the paper so that only the first line is visible, passes it on, then the next person writes a line which ends in the first rhyming word, passes it on, then the next person writes a line which ends with the next rhyming word & so on, until all of the rhyming words are used up. For number 6, we added 2 more pairs of rhyming words.

for numbers 2, 4, 7,8,9: a game called "Exquisite Corpse" or "Consequences". The first player writes part of sentence, then folds the paper to hide what was written, & writes the last word so that the next person can read it. The next player adds more words, & can end the first sentence & start a new one, if they like. Then they pass the paper on, after folding it so that only one word is visible. Continue until the page is full.

for number 3: we took it in turns rolling dice from a game called "Educational Word Game", bought at an op shop. There are 13 dice, each with letters printed on all 6 faces. The instructions are missing. For our poetry writing game, we each rolled the dice, & chose any word we liked from the letters displayed.

for number 5, each player chooses a pair of rhyming words (from a rhyming dictionary, in this case) then puts half a sentence from a book ("For New Australians", pamphlets published by the ABC in the 1950s to teach migrants how to speak Australian English) in front of each rhyming word.

for number 11, we wrote a rhyming poem with 8 words in every line. The first player chose a pair of rhyming words, & wrote them down at the end of a line with one underneath the other. Then passed to the next player, who added the seventh words to the left of the final words, then folded the page so that only their pair of words was visible to the next person, who wrote the sixth pair of words, & so on. When the first 2 lines were complete, the next person got to choose 2 more rhyming words, & write them at the end of their lines.

while various pages were being passed around, books consulted & dice rolled, Kym chopped portions out of Chinese newspapers which were spread on the table, & glued them onto a page.

"A Book of Surrealist Games" by Mel Gooding (Shambhala, 1995) supplied some of the inspiration for this session.

Rob managed to pull the name "Ruby Fauve" from the spelling dice. Perhaps she is the guardian spirit of our word-games.

participants: Neil, Janet, Kym, Tim & for some of it, Rob


1
raindrops are special kinds of eggs
bubbling with confidence and charm
graffiti faces contrasting expressions on pasted paper
let's have a dram of whiskey to drink

2
tree bough sighs... trying to understand what he felt about the best way to get peanut butter is to feed the cow peanuts sometimes grow on trees. Forks in logic branching into fine chaos, non linear amplifier distorts, white heat big hat tipped backwards, nearly falling off his head. Nodding slowly shrinking shadows follow suit.

3
spoil gruel fumes savory roars flaxen flatten dosh horsey prow route avert shakes halved quip less wharf frisk fauve ruby washer twit bends offends silent finagle rebus brains

4
Ruby Fauve painted patron of the fragmented sounds. Bless this adventure, danger, panic, running, pursuit, adrenaline, lost, calm, cool, awareness, (sogginess) of an uncomfortable wet patch underneath her feet finding nothing float like questions over the edge. Rusty certainty curved obstreperous night flight kites escaping escaping. Faster than the North wind, more powerful locomotives pulled the carriages up the mountain before slipping slurry of purple flattery clatters and fades in the crowded street filled with shiny electric cars, whose owners practiced a new style of energetic yoga.

5
are we working? yes, apocalyptic
there is a letter from the bank, cryptic
no, the question is 'Don't you understand?' elliptic
language. I won't teach you. Hidden triptych
oh, is dinner ready? we must go at seven
Mary! it can't be a hat! a hat for a dizen

6
my prayer for today: let there be more rain
spectacles, a pane of glass
chocolate and yogurt makes an interesting stain
a carpet of language but no meanings drifting past
sweet, sugary lumpy bumpy lolly gobble bliss
closer than my shadow, ignoring absent kiss
frigid barren hint wearing quirky quintessential muddy feet
famously evil glint dreaming morbid turgid quiet bleat

7
These sandwiches are full of sand.
Sand is gritty and agile in the wind,
I am here in the kitchen, you are buried deep in a chair
cooking a different way can be fun.
Hot in Chile, silly!

8
Fine! I like to go alone. Through the winding dark missing familiar faces in the garden. There are cigarette butts on that pizza. Great if you want smoky bacon. Crackling crust fencing in his knowledge with a kind of bamboo shoots are sweet when eaten with sugar dusted delight. A bite of roses without thorns in my socks, prickles in my knees, where the end of the road may be found. A serpentine pasta, winding like medusa's hair. Turn to stone from the quarry, stone edges around my garden, and a pizza oven, constantly in use, to feed a hungry mob of customers, none of whom cared for my elderly grandmother by boiling her water bottlebrush spikes, red lashes in highrise towers.

9
Once, on a grey Autumn day, some people dressed in Medieval knights are really men in tights with metal jackets to protect their favorite bits of genetic code fragmented cipher life dented panels, broken glass and rust, the atmosphere weighed heavily on his shoulders, a surly beast with a permanent grimace on its mouth. The next day, I went to catch a train to Russia at night bright with streetlights and fat cats prowling puppies among the pansies, pounce like a lion upon a zebra's back, fangs ripping, tearing, stripping, shearing sheep, naked mutton is embarrasing to me!

10
augmenting the waves, reflecting, refining, the aerial's gain
the colours, the bright lights, eyes in pain,
with a cracked ancient map for a face, the witch
it's hard to stay married when you need to scratch an itch

11
my jumping sly chagrin begin wrapping sticky fuzz
I'll ignore delicious pill still believing noisy buzz
what if faithfully snorting laughing eider ducks squabble
ever and with gurgling swallowing slippery rubbery wobble
just explosive burstings sagacity without eating lazily bask
your tasty crunchy minestrone always talking dirty flask