read write prompt #1: in a sentence

by Dana Guthrie Martin

Welcome to the first-ever Read Write Prompt. This week, we’ll focus on American Sentences. Some people don’t like the name, but please don’t be put off by it. It’s simply the name Allen Ginsberg chose for this poetry form, which is a single sentence of 17 syllables. You can read more about American Sentences at www.americansentences.com, where Paul Nelson talks about them in detail.

So this week, let’s focus on writing some American Sentences. You can write just one, or a whole list of them. You might try writing one every day of the week.

You can also pair up with another participant to write some of these collaboratively. If you want to work with another participant, just check out their blog on the participant page and shoot them an e-mail to see if they are interested in working with you.

If you go the collaborative route, try taking turns, with each of you writing one word at a time. Or you could try e-mailing an American Sentence to another participant and then having the recipient write a response American Sentence and sending it back to you — and so on and so on, until the two of you have a whole conversation going in American Sentences.

For this post, I thought we could try something fun and a little risky. I’m very interested in seeing how American Sentences might be combined to form a single poem, with different people each contributing a sentence to the overall poem. If you would like, leave one American Sentence in the comments section of this post. When we post the Get Your Poem On post, we’ll include our group poem at the bottom of that post.

Here’s how we’re going to do it:

  1. Contribute one and only one line to the group American Sentence by leaving a comment in this post that is an American Sentence.
  2. Please read through Paul’s site so you know what an American Sentence is before leaving one. Remember, one sentence, 17 syllables, direct observation.
  3. Do not leave any comment on your sentence or any comment that is not an American Sentence. If you have any questions, please use e-mail: info (at) readwritepoem (dot) org. We want to restrict comments on this post to the sentences so nothing else gets in their way.
  4. Don’t feel you have to leave a sentence that relates to the one above it. You can, but it’s not required. The sentences might be really interesting if they aren’t related but end up being read as a whole in the resulting poem.
  5. Be aware this might not work. Everything we do here in terms of collaborating is an experiment, and it’s OK if it doesn’t work out. These are just poems after all, and if we write one together that’s a dud, that’s totally cool. We’ll always have more group poems in the future.

OK, that about sums it up. Don’t forget to check out the Get Your Poem On post, which is where you can leave your permalink(s) to your contribution(s) this week. That post will go up Monday, Nov. 19 at midnight EST and will remain open for one week.

This is probably obvious, but please reserve permalinks until that time, but have fun leaving your American Sentence for the group poem on this post. Remember that you can post individually and collaboratively written American Sentences on the Get Your Poem On post. We won’t limit you to one contribution for the week.

That about does it. Now let’s all roll up our sleeves and start writing.

Poem On!

P.S. Remember that in the comments section here, type an American Sentence for the group poem. Then, in the comments section of the Nov. 19 “Get Your Poem On” post, leave a permalink to your own American Sentences contribution (the one on your own blog or on your blogs, if you worked on a contribution collaboratively).

P.P.S. Also, go take the Read Write Poll while you’re here. It’s at the top of the right sidebar.

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