Start the Year Off Write
Activity #6 of Ten Write Days
Photo by Nic Rosenau on Unsplash
Let’s start the year off with a bit of absurdity, shall we? Getting a bit kooky with words sets the tone for hijinks necessary in any creative writing class. We don’t want to take our selves too seriously and become a pack of pretentious bores.
To deliver a bit of surrealist poetry, students participate in “chance operations,” a method of generating poetry that is “independent of the author’s will.” All levels of students can participate in this activity because the purpose of a chance operation is to remove the poet from choosing the words, the images, or the arrangement of lines Allowing chance to make its own play opens the poet up to absurd possibilities and whimsical pairings of images and language.
To do this activity, I collect a bunch of magazines, old books, dictionaries, and encyclopedias for students to use. Each student is given a pair of scissors, a paper bag and a pair of dice.
Assignment:
Write down a list of ten surrealist items. Consider including an inanimate object, like a house or a paperweight, endowed with a human consciousness or an animal who has the ability to speak.
Using any text material, find ten random words that are either nouns or verbs. Consider including several unusual words from a different register or time period from where you would normally speak.
Create a list of ten actions, such as “peeling a potato,” or “fixing a flat tire” or “saying goodbye to the only person I everloved.”
Cut up all the items, words and actions and throw them into a bag or hat or box.
Using a pair of dice, determine some kind of “chance operation” that will allow the universe to pick the elements of the poetry for you.
Add connecting words as necessary.
Here’s a student sample:
Shampoo at midnight, forget the perfume
Vanilla heat and stormy seas, sway and
compare Motorola and Honda, the
resort and spa, while United Airlines fall
auction homes and Casablanca for free.
Tomato nutrients, potato food
Delicious, tasty, delirious, yum!
Enjoy lunch and supper, waffles and eggs
Have a coffee, drink up! Away you go.