February: The International Chainpoem
A Year of Surrealist Writing Games
A little background on the international chainpoem, pioneered by the US's first surrealist poet, Charles Henri Ford:
In the 1930s, a group of Japanese poets called the Vou Club began to create collaborative poetry and translate it into English for a pamphlet published by New Directions (New York City). In 1940, American Charles Henri Ford adapted this practice into what he dubbed the "chainpoem," which he defined as an "intellectual sport ... an anonymous shape laying in a hypothetical joint imagination." Ford and his collaborators mailed their lines all over the world. As the poets continued to pass on their lines to other poets, they believed that the chainpoems would "revolve to completion." Anyone could decide to write the concluding line; that poet would then make copies of the completed chainpoem and send one to each chainpoet on the list. Because chainpoems were coauthored by different poets, they found their way into obscure literary magazines rather than into solo collections. (Saints of Hysteria, i)
Here's Ford et al.'s poem:
When a parasol is cooled in the crystal garden,
one spire radiates and the other turns round;
a toad, the Unwanted, counts the ribs' teardrops
while I mark each idol in its dregs.
There is a shredded voice, there are three fingers
that follow to the end a dancing gesture
and pose a legend under the turning shade
where the girl's waterfall drops its piece.
Then balls of ennui burst one by one,
by and by metallic metres escape from ceramic pipes.
Oh sun, glass of cloud, adrift in the vast sky,
spell me out a sonnet of a steel necklace.
1. Takesi Fuji
2. Katue Kitasono
3. Charles Henri Ford
4. Dorian Cooke
5. Norman McCaig
6. Gordon Sylander
7. George Marion O'Donnell
8. Parker Tyler
9. Saburoh Kuroda
10. Nagao Hirao
11. Syuiti Nagayasu
12. Tuneo Osada
The chainpoem is not only an intellectual sport but a collective invention. However, it is not a product of social collaboration in the sense that architecture is. Each poet is architect, supervisor, bricklayer, etc., of the construction. The blueprint of the chainpoem is the anonymous shape lying in a hypothetical joint imagination, which builds as though the poem were a series of either mathematical or dream progressions.
Thus, after the first line is written, the problem of each poet, in turn, is to provide a line which may both "contradict" and carry forward the preceding line. The chain poet may attempt to include his unique style and make it intelligible to the poem as well; in which case the chainpoem will have a logical and spontaneous growth. Alternatively, using the surrealist approach, he may automatically add a line that springs from whatever is first suggested by the preceding line. After writing his line, by whatever method, the poet forwards the MS to the next on the list (which has been drawn up in advance by whoever starts the chainpoem), together with the list itself, and so the chainpoem revolves to completion. Anyone may decide he has written the concluding line, in which case he makes copies of the chainpoem and sends one to each chainpoet on the list.
The internet and Tumblr give us the ability to simplify the process:
Someone initiates the chainpoem by constructing a list of internet poets, in the order they are to write the lines, as well as the first line. He or she sends the list of poets (with URLs/emails) along with the first line to the second poet on the list.
The second poet on the list writes the second line and forwards the poem to the next poet on the list, etc.
The last poet on the list publishes the completed poem and notifies the other poets.
The initiating poet is in charge of dealing with unresponsive poets.
Kicking off the first chainpoem--first line:
In death, a piece of contact paper becomes an obese demon
Poets I am summoning (in order they are to write):
Everyone is invited to organize, write and submit a chainpoem for publication. And of course you can be involved in more than one chainpoem at a time and try out an infinite number of variations.
