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:
- Contribute one and only one line to the group American Sentence by leaving a comment in this post that is an American Sentence.
- Please read through Paul’s site so you know what an American Sentence is before leaving one. Remember, one sentence, 17 syllables, direct observation.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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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Oh me first, let me see, that’s eight, but that might be more than one sentence.
The American Sentence has seventeen syllables—period.
She once told me GIRTH was an acronym for God It’s Really Thick Hon!
my lawn’s frosty fingers plead with morning rays: “sun, take away our fears.”
Your intoxicating spice lingered in my bed three days and three nights.
Deb hangs her head, greasy hair hanging. No homework again. Now, no home.
You can sit on your porch here and watch your dog run away for three days
Ghosts try to weave into reality zigzagging through mini blinds.
Fall leaves please, I concentrate and squint, hoping for snowfall and reindeer.
Rose
xo
Wicked thoughts between Chardonnay and pizza blond delivers wife waits.
In the street- you drop my hand when a man walks by: I want to reach out.
At the doctor’s, confounded by forms: not single, not married.
Ghosts, fall leaves and your hands all remind me of sweat: I can’t forgive that.
I was only three cocktails or a stay away from execution.
May I now present a man, a wife, two children, a stock Christmas card.
My hair, unwoven, remembers how it feels to be held in a braid.
Police helicopter hovers overhead while I sit drinking my wine.
This is very intriguing, like a haiku without the end breaks.
As I write the cat stares at my efforts – clearly he is unimpressed.
All public transport grinds to a halt to call Sarkozy’s bluff – who blinks?
Twin-sentence problems can be fixed with the magic of semicolons.
Last year’s gloves hide camouflaged under lint piles of a hundred worries.
In seperate compartments, still, we all travel along the same tracks.
Tempted to attempt my very first American sentence, curiosity conquers fear of mess-up.
More shit from my pencil; how come I can’t write like Allen Ginsberg?
Jets blast, geese cronk, wind rushes scarlet leaves: sound layers above my head.
[...] Sentences: Overhead Posted on November 15, 2007 by mariacristina read.write.poem’s first prompt calls for American Sentences. Visit the site for details. Ceridwen on My Georgous [...]
Staring in her blue eyes, he says: You will always just be my lover.
It rains in the desert while I’m on the beach; the beach, of course, is dry.
I pulled shut the door as soon as I realized where my keys remained.
congealed oats- stuck to the walls of glass- reminder of my gelled life?
Spilled mocha on my blue winter coat. Rain washed it clean – but not me.
Life is transitory; let your joy and your melancholy take turns.
Everything should be as easy to erase as cheap pink nail polish.
She took nothing but crumbs, the dregs, left-overs, and tears: then she complained.
Memo to Ginsberg:
writing haiku in three lines
IS American.
sit…stay…down…over…good girl…daddy loves when you are obedient!
a cup of tea this chilly fall night, I simply sip the cold away
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