Sometimes we really like to out-do ourselves. This month, for example, we decided to do an exquisite corpse poem — a collaboration wherein each person adds a line without seeing anything more than the line immediately preceding it! It’s a throw-caution-to-the-wind kind of activity. We’ve done one before. It’s fun. Why not?
THEN we thought we’d add — along with our own, brand new lines — some of Linda Mitchell’s incredible (beautiful) (whimsical) (poetic) (non-clunky) clunkers from the past few years! Why not?
And THEN we got together over zoom, shared the complete draft, and gave each other permission to do with it what we may — cut, rearrange, add to, edit.
It should be noted that all of this fit perfectly into our 2023 theme of transformation — each line inspiring the next and transforming the previous ones, and then each of us transforming the shared draft into something all our own. And as for my additional challenge — focusing on a singular scientific process — well, I’m using Refraction this time around because it’s about light and sound and perspective and changing direction.
So, oof. That’s what we did, process-wise. Now here is the kind of remarkable complete draft we came up with first, each of us unawares of everything but the previous line and clunker. (And I say remarkable because, honestly, it kind of holds together, don’t you think?)
Tanita: They say the mind is garden-like, with thoughts as sprouting seeds
CLUNKER: but I’m left holding cuttings I’m not sure where to plant
Sara: Weedy-thick, the prickly buds of odd logic bloom:
CLUNKER: You don’t cry anymore, but you sing all the words.
Liz: Each line in a different language as the light shifts,
CLUNKER: trees turned so orange the road looked blue.
Mary Lee: Words tangle, colors muddy in the palette.
CLUNKER: I am no longer winsome to the sun.
CLUNKER: a whole sun’s rise to share
Tricia: there goes the one that got away
CLUNKER: found a bit of sunflower
Laura: and plucked every petal (by the way, he loves me)
Kelly: and then I remembered
CLUNKER: that’s what you wrote about the green beans
Tanita: Stockpile, then, that snap and sass to sweeten your September.
And here’s what I did with it. It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me or my work that my primary activity was trimming and boiling down. The poem, not the beans…
Refraction, This Morning
my mind goes garden-like
and weedy-thick,
buds of odd logic
bloom
I pluck sunrise
petal by every petal
(there goes
the one that got away)
and I sing
in different languages
as the light shifts,
trees so orange
the road turns blue
Then I remember
what you said
and I snap
green beans,
stockpile them
to sweeten
September
By Liz Garton Scanlon
Here are the others so you can see how differently the drafts fared in our various hands:
Tricia
Kelly
Sara
Tanita
Mary Lee
Laura
And you can find lots more to read at the Poetry Friday post at Teacher Dance!
FYI, next month we’re trying Diminishing Verse, and you’re welcome to join us!!
I love how you combined the sunrise and the sunflower petals! Great job pruning, oh Bonsai-poetry Queen!
Oh, as you said, you went spare…but the kind of glorious spare that illuminates everything… just stunning. I enjoyed this challenge so much, and even more seeing all the beautiful poems that resulted.
There’s something beautiful in the spareness of the poem and the way you chose just the right words and phrases for your poem. The last stanza sounds/reads like Mary Oliver to me. I love it!
Oh, now this is lovely! You pared us down into a single scene, giving us quiet morning energy that works so, so well. I feel like this is an interpretation!!
I like the way you capture the idea of refraction, changing light, changing thoughts. Beautiful.
I love plucking sunrise so much, Liz. You really did carve this out beautifully!
I love that you chose the theme of refraction, Liz, and told us it was coming with “buds of odd logic bloom”, your personal life revealed? And, I keep forgetting to say that as others in the group have written, I like the original lines together too, a story with all the ‘snap and sass’ from each one of you plus Linda!
Whoa what a transformation — maybe of light, definitely of poem… edit, edit, edit– lots of weeding, And I love those
“green beans,/to sweeten/September” Thanks Liz!
Liz, yours is one of the last Poetry Sisters’ poems I’m reading, and I’m so intrigued and blessed with the results. It’s been so fun to read them. I especially enjoyed reading the way you describe the process here (and maybe it’s because I read everyone’s and they say it in a bit different way) By now, I feel like I really understood how you enjoyed this Exquisite Corpse. Love, love your mind going “weedy-thick” and that alliteration in the last three lines is delicious.
WOW! That’s incredible…all the riffing on each other’s lines and all the many ways the lines came together. So stinkin’ cool. I love the sunflower petals all the way to the green beans.
Liz, I am in awe of the process the Poetry Sisters engaged in and the way the draft poem arrived. Your poem was trimmed down to a beautiful piece with glorious visuals. The line that struck me is:
I pluck sunrise
petal by every petal
This one is so alive with imagination. Thanks for sharing.
a snapshot, a glimpse — love the spare, love the spin this took, turning from summer to September
I love your poem so much, Liz. Plucking sunrise petal by petal are certainly swoon-worthy lines. Thanks for the hidden lesson on how to pair things down to the essential.