by Nathan Moore
This week we’ll have some chance encounters or, more accurately, encounters with chance by using the cut-up technique. First created by Tristan Tzara in the 1920s and used later by William S. Burroughs, the cut-up lets us open our work to randomness and chance in interesting ways.
The idea is to choose some text — a poem, a newspaper article, a memo from your supervisor — cut out each word, drop the words into a container, shake the container vigorously, then write down each word as you draw it from the container.
You can then decide if what you have is a finished poem or a rough draft. You might clean it up a little, arrange line breaks, cut some words or add transitions. You might decide that what you have is just right.
Sometimes we need to relax the reins a little, let language speak through us. The idea is that when we give up control and let chance take over we open up possibility, we create situations in which language can surprise us.
Get your scissors and have some fun! Questions or remarks? use the comments section of this post. Leave a link to what you come up with next Thursday on the Get Your Poem On post.
Nathan Moore is community director and a columnist for Read Write Poem. In his spare time, he plays with his children and with fire. Never at the same time. He blogs at Exhaust Fumes and French Fries.
I like this idea; it’s similar to the google poems I wrote last week for the mash-up prompt. Randomness creates some fantastic surprises.
Nathan replied:
October 16th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Indeed it does, Damian.
I’ll cut up one of my husband’s essays — he’ll agree to let me do so. So my poem will be a family effort!
Maybe I should cut up some of my stuff and then reassemble it…..then….it might make more sense…I don’t think that randomness is at the soul of poetry…even though sometimes it seems like it is…..every individuals soul is at the soul of poetry…but not everyone has the talent to expose their inner feelings in the written word….
Nathan replied:
October 16th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Tzara said the cut up poem will “resemble” its author.
Maybe randomness can expose emotions we didn’t even know we had.
This sounds like fun. Any suggestions on how we can make adjustments once we’ve gotten the randomized words on paper?
Nathan replied:
October 16th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Well, if you want, you can treat it like a rough draft and revise accordingly.
If you don’t like what you come up with you can always cut something else up and see what happens.
[...] http://readwritepoem.org/blog/2009/10/16/read-write-prompt-97/?utm_source=microblog&utm_medium=... a few seconds ago from web [...]
I am thinking I will slice up some poetry along with some of my simpler, intentional journal entries. (I write a lot of one sentence journals which are a lot of fun and because succinct, ripe with poetry naturally).
Awesome! Now I have something positive to do with all those rejection letters I’ve been receiving!
I love this prompt and the technique: words in a bowl, fighting to be the next in line.
I’ve always felt that poems write themselves. We are just the pens.
Nathan replied:
October 16th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
“We are just the pens.” — I love that.
rallentanda replied:
October 16th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
‘little words huddled together surrounded by pens’makes me feel sorry for the words
I think I might cut up some phrases rather than individual words. We’ll see how that works.
Paul Oakley replied:
October 16th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Yes, good idea. I cut up words and on a first try came up with a string of 15 cases of a, an, the, and 2 or 3-letter prepositions before I came to my next usable word. Burroughs didn’t use such small units in his prose cut up method. I’d have to check, but if I remember right it was more like paragraph units or page portions. He wasn’t busting up sentences but the linearity of much larger narratives.
Paul Oakley replied:
October 20th, 2009 at 9:52 am
Having said that, when it came to working with what I had after pure 1-word string cut up, I moved 3 words in edit, added 1 word, changed 2 tenses and clarified 1 s-v agreement, added some commas, hyphens, dashes, elipses, and 1 period, and, other than that, merely eliminated those words I couldn’t make fit, which worked because I started out with plenty enough words to spare.
I really didn’t see how this exercise would produce me, but it definitely did. Now I can’t wait to run it up the RWP flagpole and see who looks up.
Nathan replied:
October 16th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Sure, Jerry. Cut up phrases, words, sentences, letters, whatever works for you.
Oh, the possibilities! What to cut up?
It was such fun doing this.It will be difficult to return to conventional poetry .Some of the random lines were wicked and I’m leaving them all in.
Nathan replied:
October 17th, 2009 at 8:48 am
I’m glad you had fun. I look forward to reading what you came up with!
I can just see all the mad poets with their scissors now!
Im far from “mad”…but my madness comes out in my poetry…dam now I am mad…just cut part of my finger with scissors…do I put the wee bit of skin in the bowl too?..maybee just put piece of paper in bowl with skin on it and see where it comes out…now for the madness which is soooooooooo much more fun than doing the scisssor thing with my finger and getting MAD.
Nathan replied:
October 17th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
I was just about to say be careful with those scissors!
[...] again this week, got a great start on rwp prompt #97 a 45-liner randomizing the first word of each of my lines through the first page of Turco’s [...]
[...] a comment » The prompt was to try out the cut-up technique. I tried, and with varying degrees of luck. I have used [...]
Here is my belated entry for Prompt #97
http://hiparthroscopy.wordpress.com/2009/10/14/from-pre-op-to-surgery/
I cut up my artist’s statement from a current art show… I read it and it made me cry so I decided to slice and dice and see what came up.
I love it in its new version, I molded a little bit by adding words, but it was less than five that I added… and I made it all into a piece
of word-art.
Love this concept. Love how it felt divine to choose the fragments “at random”… ha.
Sorry y’all. My 97 was actually your 96. Oh well, I’ve been in the hospital. Now to the chance dance.merce Cunningham made choreography this way. Lots of fun.
I can’t make this work!
Nathan replied:
October 21st, 2009 at 10:33 pm
I can’t either but I’m doing it anyway!
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
October 21st, 2009 at 11:15 pm
I don’t see yours!
[...] Notes I tried to do the cut-up technique prompt at Read Write Poem using my recent poem “Annulment,” and this what came out. I admit to massaging it a great deal [...]
[...] #97: ReX The ReadWritePoem #97 prompt is to use the “cut up” technique, that is to cut words or phrases from a text and [...]
[...] Not the prompt, but a rewrite of an old poem from the stacks of other old poems decidedly in need of a rewrite. [...]