the poetry collaborative

bout rimé poem

when clouds cover the moon

by Neil and Christine

My hands are orchids,
but in anger they provoke

violet bruises. Livid
birds screech in a dovecote,

wings beating against bamboo.
Their black judgment must abide,

suspended in time, like an ant in amber
or Papa when he’s high–

his gnarled hands turn a crank
that voice! that voice! it’s mine–

not a magpie’s, nor a mountebank’s,
piercing the nighttime.

I wish for whispers, willows,
a sunrise tomorrow.

chop suey poem

my other body

by Christine (using Dana’s words)

I’m superhero Darla Joe
in a made-in-Mexico
cape, flying at melted
sunsets on buttery days.

I spread memories and men
across toast like butter,
wipe my body with yellow
as the sun licks my thighs,

swim with a man who looks
like tomorrow’s fair goat.
These things are all aflutter,
keep the clean taste of love.

another exquisite corpse poem

by Carolee and Slynne

Reach out for skin, flesh of another
Variety entices me, but I always prolong
the yearning for unfamiliar skin, for teeth
taking away bits of flesh. It gets
hard to know which is up, what’s your
temptation? See in me a girl who
runs her fingernails down your spine, presses breasts
against breasts. Hold on to me
slowly sliding hands up your legs
will never guess how much
to trust or how long to stay.
A small flame, the tiniest blaze
ignites the pyre and leaves behind only ash -
Mark my face with sooty stripes. This warrior
stance, this posture of holy strength and verve
Say my name: It sparks on your tongue.

bookends collaboration

I don’t know if this will work. It’s an experiment. Isn’t that how all good things come about? Anyway …

Members of the collective, we are going to use lists from our poet pals to start and end our lines in a short poem.

Please type (in the body of this post) a list of 10 words. You can provide more than one list if you want. Please label each one with your name (for example, Carolee1, Carolee2, etc.).

When we write, we take one list and use it as beginnings words for each line in a poem. We take a second list and use it as the ending words of each line. Then, we fill in the middle.

Here’s an illustration in case I’m instructionally challenged:

(a word from Dana1) ___________________ (a word from Jill1)

The blank space is where you fill in some words of your own to make a spectacular piece of collaborative fun-age.

Do we have to use all 10 words and make a 10-line poem or can we pick 6 from each list and write a shorter poem? Either way. Do we have to use the words in the order they’re provided? You decide as you write.

So stop over and add some lists. Let’s say we’re accepting list contributions between now and 9 a.m. EST Saturday. Grab lists as they pop up or wait until we have all that we’re going to have (Saturday) and choose from among them all!

— Carolee

Carolee1: at, sinister, give, no, vacant, livid, on, revolve, who, remedy

Christine1: squid, truss, flex, shed, exit, coil, run, comes, mud, in

slynne1: on, flex, shout, orange, inside, tile, crisp, her, may, child

Christine2: forget, before, river, canoe, almost, between, portage, escape, sliver, pebbles

Christine3 : fail, under, napalm, napkin, elephantine, laugh, could, after, kite, enough (if you use these words in order as beginning words they will make an acrostic).

Jo1: acid, plumbed, bucket, curator, marbles, coin, squatted, lever, salt, collect

exquisite corpse prompt

I read about exquisite corspe in a book Dana recommended to me called Saints of Hysteria, a Half-Century of Collaborative American Poetry (pg. 225, Denise Duhamel and Maureen Seaton). Intrigued, I went to the web and found an interesting site explaining the process.

This type of poem can be written as a chain poem among several poets, or in pairs. The posibilities are endless. Illustrations could also be a part of the process. A poet writes a line, and then reveals only the end phrase to the next person, who writes a full response, but sends on only the final words.

The participants write with their intuition about what the hidden lines contain. A preconceived idea might set the tone, as in Jo’s and my poem (we wrote about sound), or the writers can respond with a stream of consciousness line of poetry, the first thought that comes to them, very quickly, without analyzing, with no prior theme.

The web site on exquisite corpse details how fascinating it can be to mesh unconscious, seemingly unrelated thoughts from different poets into one poem.

After the pre-determined number of lines is reached, each writer reveals the hidden parts of the lines, and a full poem emerges.

As suggested in Saints of Hysteria in a different prompt (pg. 221, James Bertolino), Jo and I decided to revise the collected lines each to our own liking, in the order we chose. This final step allowed each of us to form the poem as an integral, intentional piece. At the same time, the surreal, random nature of the poem was then diminished.

— Christine

another version of the exquisite corpse collaboration, a prose poem

by Christine and Jo

Squirrels acrobat in the attic, ghost children at play, voices whisper from floorboards and air vents. I wake fully as rain begins, listen to it hissing in the slick leaves of tulip poplars, a shiny, wind-tied bouquet, tiny wet hands knocking at the window asking to come in. Thunder breaks, crescendo to a ceiling fan’s whir, its spin disturbing the cling of air, cooling skin. Stretching, groaning, I move downstairs, open the front door—tyres splash over puddled asphalt, afterstorm scents swirl in the breeze, ribboned leaves flurry and eddy, postbox nips at my fingers with tin teeth. Sounds blend into cords, bind me here, far from the murmurs of ancestors in dreams.

exquisite corpse poem

bringing the secret world outside
by Jo and Christine

Squirrels acrobat in the attic, ghost children at play,
voices whisper from floorboards, air vents, while I write.
Rain hisses among slick leaves of tulip poplars–
a shiny gift, a wind-tied bouquet.

Tiny hands knock at the window, asking to come in,
howls of ancestors echo in my daydreams.
Lightening cracks, crescendo to a ceiling fan’s
whir, the cling of air disturbed, cooling my skin.

I stretch, groan, go downstairs,
open the front door–tires splash over puddled asphalt,
after-storm rumbles and scents swirling in the breeze
bring flurries and eddies, ribbons of leaves.

The postbox nipping at my fingers with tin teeth
blends with indoor cords that reach me on the street.

chop suey poem

the fire in an avocado
by Deb (using Christine’s words)

Vine tomatoes look ripe
Between the hard avocados
The ones I rock under a window
In the Port-au-Prince market
I reach to lay-in farmer’s bulbs
Themselves searching out of pliant tree
In their arms the burn of feast
Press after the gallon of gasoline
Stripes of grass for avocados
I offer a mother lunch of shady mounds

chop suey poem

lights of mantras
by Christine (using Slynne’s words)

Lights of mantras
coo at your feet,

They’ve demanded
that you flex
while you raise your hips
off the floor,

they’ve glazed
your words and
stood with you
on the floor
until you pose.

They pillow you,
help you to meet
your needs.

They towel the sheen
of your sweat.

Now you lie on a blanket
and ask yourself if
they are calming you or
pulling you into a pose,

until they twist
into your dim body.

chop suey poem

feeding station
by Deb (using Slynne’s words)

Hands dance out of love.
She strings talk like spells over birds.

* * *

sign language
by Christine (using Slynne’s words)

Hands dance over

talk like strings of birds

she spells out L-O-V-E

* * *

Hey, so should we gather up all the responses using the same set of words and post them together so it’s easy to see how we each approached the word list differently? These are fab, BTW. — xoxo, Dana