read write prompt #33: wordplay is the new black

by Dana Guthrie Martin

I was over at Via Negativa recently, where Dave Bonta created an outstanding poem using the method given at ShuffleWords.

Basically, you take the words given to you, move them around on your screen and come up with a poem. It’s sort of like refrigerator magnet poetry but the word choices must be better, since Dave’s poem is so fantastic. Or maybe the word choices aren’t any better, and Dave just knows how to write a killer poem given any set of limitations.

This got me thinking: Why not have the Read Write Poem community use ShuffleWords to create their poems this week? And then I got to thinking a little more: Why not invite participants to engage in any kind of word-limiting exercise for their poems this week. Some examples might include cutting words out of magazines and limiting yourself to those words for your poem. You could even make a collage, scan it and post it on your blog for the next Get Your Poem On.

The above options don’t float your boat? What about picking out random words you see during your day, writing them down then using those words, and those words only, for a poem? Or, pluck words from a book for your poem. Or what about this: Use the random words that rattle around in your head all day. I’ll provide some examples from the track playing in my own head right now: noodle, rickety, spun, froth, boat, cannon, spire, train, feather, crow, brand, element, jargon.

There’s no limit to the number of word you can gather for your poem, just make sure you restrict yourself to only the words you collect using whatever means of collection you have chosen. So if you are pulling a bunch of words out of a book, and you suddenly realize you want the word “boa” in your poem but it’s not one of your words, well that’s just too bad, so sad.

Just kidding. We are somewhat loose with the rules around here, and nobody’s getting graded after all. So minor infringements are tolerated.

Oh, another collaborative way you can approach this project is to let someone else pick out your list, and then you run with that list to make your poem.

One caveat: Since we are restricting ourselves to only the words we collect, it would be wise to gather up a nice bundle. And don’t forget about things like “a,” “an,” “the” and “of” to name a few, otherwise you will find yourself sitting down to write and unable to make any of the oh-so-important connections and associations between words.

If anyone wants to jump into the comments section and throw out a big old list of words that other participants can use for their poems, that would be super excellent. (And in the collaborative spirit!) Just remember the a, an, the, of, in, on, -ly, -ed kinds of words in whatever list you leave.

So, to sum up. You can create your poem using:

ShuffleWords

Words clipped from magazines

Words taken from a book

Words you see out in the big wide world

Words that flit about in your head throughout the day

Someone else’s list of words, including those participants leave in the comments section

Whatever method you come up with that is to your liking

But wait! There’s more!
In super exciting late-breaking Read Write Poem news: We just set up a Read Write Poem account on Twitter to which every single Read Write Poem participant will be given access (if they want access, that is). This is a grand experiment where (we hope) participants will chat, throw prompt ideas out there, ask poetry-related questions and collaborate with one another (such as leaving lists of words for other participants to use).

The only glitch is you only get 140 characters over there per “tweet,” which is a considerable limitation. But there are ways around it. For example, you might want to pose a question on the RWP Twitter account and ask others to respond to it on their blogs.

To access the account, e-mail us at info (at) readwritepoem (dot) org and we’ll hook you up. Just remember to play nice, which I am sure you all will. We don’t want any fights breaking out on the Twitterground.

(Also, please note that of course you can interact with the RWP Twitter feed from your own Twitter account, but we thought it would be cooler to also give every participant access to the actual RWP account. This is a community, after all, and every single person in the community is part of the whole.)

(Also also, if you have your own Twitter account — and if you don’t now is a good time to set one up — please do add Read Write Poem’s Twitter account to your list. We’ll be using our followers list to determine who we should be following over on Twitter.)