Lunday's ENGL 2307 Blog

@rlunday

A site for exercise ideas, readings, links, and other good stuff for Dr. Robert Lunday's ENGL 2307 Intro to Creative Writing Class at Houston Community College.

64 posts

Texas State Poet Laureate, Rosemary Catacalos: Begin ~ Again “Remember tonight... for it is the beginning of always.”―Dante Alighieri Public Poetry is bringing Texas State Poet Laureate, Rosemary C...

Note: your professor will be introducing!

Exercise 54

"Real" Translation

Do you have any experience with a language other than English? Try a “version” of a poem in that language — that is, a loose tranlsation, but one that still owes something to the purpose, sound, imagery, and voice of the original, even if you take liberties line by line. Don’t know another language besides English? Copy and paste a poem in antoher language into Google Translate, and see what comes out — after the machine does its (possibly awkward) work, revise the poem to make it work — even if you don’t know what the original poem said.

NOTE: Again, please provide us with the author and title of the work, so we can have a look at the original.

Exercise 53

Gothic

Read H. P. Lovecraft’s "The Beast in the Cave" and then put yourself in a cave or some similar confined space; write your way out of it. (There are many other Lovecraft tales at this site).

Read Rainer Maria Rilke’s ”Corpse Washing” and write a poem or story that gives life to something/someone dead — but, perhaps as in Rilke’s poem, without treading too far into the supernatural (think of the power of suggestion, of shadows, reflections, night-time animations, etc.)

Read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" and write a similar tale (poetry or prose) in which someone goes in search of something, encounters a series of obstacles, and discovers that it is sometimes best not to find what you are looking for.

Exercise 52

Instructions

Read Jon Stallworthy’s “Pour Commencer”:

Take 1 green pepper and 2 tomatoes and cut them into rings and hearts. Mix those with olives, black olives, and go for a swim in a green sea with her (or him). Then serve your salad on two bellies. Pour a little sun-warmed olive oil in your salt navel, some vinegar in hers (or his), and eat slowly with your fingers. Empty the bottle. Open a second. Then lick your plates. You will need them again.

Make a list of processes, instructions, etc.; in other words, think about all the ways someone can teach someone else how to do something: cooking, making, repairing, problem-solving, playing a game, or anything. Choose one process; write a poem or story that presents these instructions in a more “interesting” way.

You’ve probably used such sites; you might explore them while you’re brainstorming:

http://www.ehow.com/

http://www.wikihow.com/Main-Page

…or, explore Youtube.

— and, to violate my own exercise: Here is a reading of a poem (from “Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle”) that is a set of un-instructions — Dorothy Parker, “Resume.”

It’s National Poetry Month, and you’re probably thinking: “I should really read more poetry. But where oh where do I start?” Well, sound the trumpets, because here is Flavorwire to the rescue! Afte...

Exercise 51

Poem or Story Beginning (or ending, or including) With a Line From…

A common type of poem is one generally titled “Poem Beginning with a Line from [title or other poet]”. This, like the Verb Skeleton exercise, is simply a way to jump-start yourself, but also to have conversation with another artist, in a way. The line can be how you start, but also you can try to write “toward” the line; it might also simply be embedded in the poem you write (or story).

This can work in many different ways: you might actually try to include other aspects of the starting poem you’ve taken the line from — one obvious “steal,” and then several (or one) subtler steals or inversions; something on the same theme; something in the same form; or something totally different. You might use a line that breaks before a sentence is finished, and send it in a very different direction, as well.

Exercise 50

Elegy

See this Youtube video of a film clip from Four Weddings and a Funeral, in which John Hannah recites W.H. Auden’s “Funeral Blues.”

There are many elements that we can draw from this poem — or from the film clip itself. here are a few of my suggestions:

Write a poem, story, or essay of hyperbole (look this up online or in a glossary of rhetorical or poetic terms).

Write a poem, essay, or story consisting of a series of commands.

Write a basic elegy: consider as precisely and imaginatively as you can just what you (or others, of the whole world) have lost from someone’s (or something’s) passing.

Look at the film clip and consider how the director and others making this film were thinking. Notice how the camera pans the mourners; notice how the recitation is transformed as it proceeds; notice how the poem is framed before and after, visually and dramatically.

You can find out more about elegies, with some links to other models, here at poets.org.

Exercise 49

Castaway

You might have read Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe; or perhaps you saw the Tom Hanks movie called castaway (or an old movie, poorly remade by Madonna, called Swept Away. Then there’s Lost — and many other stories about being stranded).

The idea for this exercise is in part about imagining yourself stranded on a desert island (or planet, if you prefer). But mainly what I want you to focus on is the intensive mental creation of a defined, limited, space and experience within that space. This is a little like hypnosis, or going into a trance, if it works well:

Sit or lie in a comfortable place, with low or soft light, where you won’t be interrupted. Make a set of rules for the island, planet, mansion, etc. that you want to be stranded in; describe its layout, its objects, topography, rooms, flora and fauna; imagine yourself standing, sitting, walking, and doing various things within the space after you have already consciously listed out, over several minutes in your head, as much detail about it as you can.

The idea, when this works, is that you get so entranced by the details, your mind seems to go into automatic: you start to see things vividly, and enter a kind of virtual reality. It’s really just a way to focus your mind and become sensitive to detail. Imagine every blade of grass, every tree, every rock, every shade and hue, every texture; keep focusing, as if in meditation; wait for the waking dream to begin.

Then, if it works — write down what you remember…turn it into a story or poem.

Exercise 48

Parents

Write a poem or story about parents. Some suggestions:

Think about a specific form: confession, prayer, accusation, eulogy, series of questions, or some anaphoric list pattern (“do you remember…I want…I loved/hated it when…)..

Try combining this with the dialogue exercise.

Write from the point of view of a child.

Write from the point of view of the parent, but secretly from the point of view of the child.

Read this story, “My Oedipus Complex,” by Frank O’Connor: write your response/update to it

Sylvia Plath, “Daddy" (a video collage with Plath reading) Robert Hayden, “Those Winter Sundays” Theodore Roethke, “My Papa’s Waltz" (audio of Roethke reading) …and a long list of poems about mothers — with an essay; at the poets.org site: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5868

Exercise 47

When in Rome

Browse the library or the Internet for pictures and text about a particular culture you’ve always been interested in, or perhaps had never heard of. It’s useful to use children’s and young-adult texts for this, I’ve found – they are easier to peruse, and usually illustrated. The downtown public library is a good place to go, if you have time; their children’s collection is very good, and organized so that you can easily browse the “social studies” books. But the ‘Net will do fine, too.

Gather material: concepts, characteristics, images, notable individuals, history, customs, tongue, implements, etc. (The culture, by the way, can be extinct – many are, unfortunately). Then:

write an anthropologist’s view of this culture – but make it work both directions: what the viewer says reflects as well on him/herself.

write a brief essay-sketch on the thing that is most interesting, poignant, horrific, etc.

write an ode to the culture – or an elegy, if they’re extinct or near-extinct.

write a scene of encounter between a member of that culture and of yours/ours.

For further inspiration, see a) any classic text of anthropology; b) a poem by Craig Raine, “A Martian Sends a Postcard Home.”

Some interesting cultures I’ve come across: The Melungeons, in the Appalachian region; the Irish Travelers (in the news recently, indirectly); the Burakumin in Japan, a kind of “untouchable” group; the Jews of China; and the Pitcairn Islanders (descendants of the mutinous “Bounty” sailors and Polynesians). (It doesn’t have to be an ethnic culture, by the way – circus people are interesting to study, or my “culture,” military brats – a nomadic breed.)

Exercise 46

Delay

Write a poem or story in which the main feature is something NOT happening; someone waiting, someone on hold, a train coming, a doorbell ringing, a watched pot not boiling…use the delay as a way of studying the protagonist’s sense of self. The classic work that does something like this is Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot — an example of Theater of the Absurd. However, many works use this concept in various ways.

Exercise 45

Epitaphs

Write one for yourself, or for someone else (still living or not).

They should be brief, and don’t need to be in verse; they should seal off something about the person: what was best, worst, most memorable, least understood, singular, most common, etc. Write something you think would look good in granite. Start by looking here:

S.T. Coleridge, “Epitaph” Countee Cullen, “An Epitaph” Ben Franklin’s self-written epitaph W. B. Yeats’ “Under Ben Bulben”

And to browse…

The Epitaph Browser.

Google “epitaphs” and you’ll find more. You might also think, as you read, of a way to subvert, update, or otherwise do something new with the form.

Exercise 44

Unusual Jobs

Write about an unusual line of work: one that really exists (Google the phrase, and you’ll find some examples), or one that you imagine. What are the allegorical possibilities for this line of employment? How do the occupation reveal something about the individual or the societal role he/she fits?

Or, more subtly: write about your work life; what have been some of the more curious people/experiences/duties in a job you had?

On the old blog site, I’ve posted a short-short story called "The Laugher" by the German writer Heinrich Böll. Also, try out this Franz Kafka story, "The Hunger Artist."

Exercise 43

Letters (as in the alphabet)

Read the poem called “Contemporary Culture and the Letter “K’” by Alfred Corn. Don’t worry about getting all of the allusions; I don’t. What’s interesting to me about this poem is the way the poet uses a “conceptual” frame that’s very simple, even dumb (a lot of conceptual art is dumb, in my opinion, or too clever), and yet manages to create a link among many cultural entities that is very interesting as a study of the last century.

Such a concept has built-in invention possibilities; it’s a “list” exercise that can generate many ideas through the arbitrary rule that you would never have reached otherwise.

Try something like this with a letter you like (do you have a favorite letter of the alphabet?) You can make a portrait of “contemporary culture,” but like Corn, you might find a topic that already has your letter in its name.

This is also an interesting exercise in alliteration, or the rhyming of consonants. English poetry in its inception was largely driven by alliteration and strong stress (four beats per line) as unifiers in place of syllabic meters and end rhyme, as was common later. I think there’s still a strong appreciation for the concatenation of consonants (assonance, too: the rhyming of vowel sounds).

Exercise 42

Garbology

Listen to this story by James Alan McPherson, "Gold Coast." There are many elements worth emulating in this wonderful and prize-winning story (I hope you’ll go to the library and find a print copy of either Hue and Cry, McPherson’s collection that includes the story; or, get a copy of The Best American Short Stories of the Century, which includes it).

The one particular aspect that I have in mind for this exercise is what is called “garbology.” Look at page 86 in particular. You might also read the Wikipedia entry. The idea is to write something that makes use of fragmented details; you might actually work with garbage, or with yard sales. Take notes on interesting things you find in the garbage (wear gloves!), or that you find at some yard or garage or moving sales (Look them up in the Greensheet, or Craigslist, for example). Then, see what sort of story or poem arises from the juxtapositioning of the things you listed. The idea, also, is to improve your powers of speculation, of inference; consider how we know a lot from parts rather than wholes.

Exercise 41

Rebus

First, check out this Wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebus

Next: create your own rebus — either for your name, or for something that might serve as your motto.

Exercise 40

Concrete Poetry (or Prose)

Start by reading the Wikipedia entry on Concrete Poetry; then, expand on the concept by exploring this site; click on “Browse collections” and scan through.

This exercise can be taken in more than one direction, of course — because we are going beyond the standard sense of what makes a poem (or a text of any kind). Text is physical; however, typing away on our keyboards we can forget that. So, the two main suggested directions are: (1) Think of a concept, or a shape, or an action that can be drawn, simply (like George Herbert’s “Easter Wings”), and try to find words that “fill” the outline, but also speak directly or indirectly of the concept (you can realign the object, I suppose, as Herbert did — making his wings sideways); or, (2) make a text by hand — the pre-21st-century way! — on paper, wood, cloth, with soap, shaving cream, syrup — anything you can imagine; write, again, in a way that suggests the medium you are using. Then, take a photo of the results and upload that as your exercise.

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