Flo ran this workshop on 26/4/2013. It's adapted from a workshop given by Karen Solie during Poetry Parnassus, 2012.
1. Write a one line image.
2. Write something you’ve overheard.
4. Write a statement of belief.
5. Write a line using a specific/scientific lexicon that you know from your circumstances.
6. Write something completely made up, or an absolute lie.
Now take a couple of minutes to edit and refine it. You can try moving the lines about if you like. What do you come up with?
‘An assertion will always have a shadow walking beside it’
One way to create surprise can be to move from uncertainty into a moment of clarity.
Start a new piece (any form you like, this works for poetry, prose and drama) with a sentence that is a statement. It can be ‘Leaves are green’ or ‘I love you’ or ‘ABC as easy as 123’.
Next write the shadow that walks beside the statement – a doubt, or the opposite of what you’ve just written, or the first associated thought that pops into your head. Something that qualifies and brings into question the statement.
Do the same thing for another few lines – see if you can get 8 statements and their shadows, in a kind of call and response.
Resolve the piece with a statement that cannot be qualified, or which is the conclusion of the argument your piece has worked out. Do you stop on the statement, or on the shadow? Does the shadow repeat the statement, or say something different? What kind of surprise is created here?
Write a piece – a short poem, piece of fiction (about 2 paragraphs) or dialogue – using a demotic lexis, i.e., try and stick in as many ‘yolo’s as you can!
Now transpose that piece into how you actually talk on a day to day basis (if it’s different).
Now transpose it into an elevated register, e.g.:
Nature appall'd
Shakes off her wonted firmness.--Ah ! how dark
The long-extended realms, and rueful wastes!
Where nought but silence reigns, and night, dark night,
Dark as was chaos, ere the infant Sun
Was roll'd together, or had tried his beams
Athwart the gloom profound.--The sickly taper,
By glimm'ring thro' thy low-brow'd misty vaults,
(Furr'd round with mouldy damps, and ropy slime)
Lets fall a supernumerary horror,
And only serves to make thy night more irksome.
-The Grave by Robert Blair
Use as much periphrasis (e.g. ‘the finny tribe’) as you can!
Now transpose it into a scientific, technical or specific lexis, e.g. latin nomenclature, etc.
Now see if you can put in words from another language or other languages. They don’t have to be direct translations – just what words do you know from other languages? See if you can replace every noun, for example. If you speak another language well enough to translate the piece, go ahead, or see if you can mix it into a strange hybrid with English.
Now see if you can transpose it into a mythical, religious or spiritual register, something magical and soulful.
Now take your favourite bits of each version, and see if you can mix them up. Try and create surprise by shifting the register at key moments. Which mixes work best? How many changes create the best effects?
We’re going to write a villanelle, which is a patterned poem. They’re difficult, so don’t worry if you find it tricky!
See if you can make your refrains ring like a bell – they should have a force to them.
How can you create surprise through pattern and variation?
See if you can build up the pattern of rhymes and repeats of the villanelle, but halfway through, or towards the end, deviate from them – see if you can create surprise.
origamiaround
izzy806
pixelskylines
blakekathryn
vaporwave
yousharknotpass
dailybridgerton
areudirty
stormborns
