ACTIVITY: Making a Star Field

This week's creative writing club activity was taken from an exercise developed by Christian Bök called Impromptu #16, which was hosted by The Found Poetry Review during a National Poetry Month activity in 2016, and which instructed us about how to create a field of stars based on a found text.

While Bök's exercise suggested using source material from an antiquarian astronomy text, in the interest of time (club members only meet for one hour each week), we used material from Astronomy Books Online. Follow the link above if you want to read more about how the star fields were made or just look at the amazing creations that follow! Don't you wish you were part of it?

ACTIVITY: Write a Tritina

A tritina is a derivative form of a sestina. The tritina is a ten-line form that consists of three tercets and a concluding line. Like in a sestina, the last word of each line repeats, but in a different order. The final line includes all three of the words. For example:

1
2
3

3
1
2

2
3
1

123 or 321 or any combination thereof.

The numbers represent the words that should be repeated at the end of each line. The final line should include all three words in any order. Our variations may be slightly different, but this is the basic idea.

We tried to write tritinas using a uniform list of words: beat, sage and echo. What can you come up with? If you really want to challenge yourself, try a sestina!

This is a repost of a previous activity. Go here or here and read some other examples...

ACTIVITY: Write a Villanelle

This week, we learned how to write a villanelle. You can read instructions from last year, do your own internet answer quest, or look at our results below.

i fermented cream

fava plastic
we supermarket until well

mash beans

focused beans remember
lentils with dark empty individually ate end things

i’m not sprouted long

lightweight being
black that wrapped mad

glug night incapable

pile beans
our whatever

ginger meal beans and candies

patient eating moved intensely
rice dried ideal colorful

favorite pea simmered red

green gram driving and garlic cannellini
pigeon beans chiles tomatoes cilantro

a family in mung

--
Text taken from an article that appeared in the New York Times Magazine entitled "The Comfort in Stockpiling Dried Beans" by Tejal Rao and manipulated using the Cut-Up Machine from Language is a Virus.

ACTIVITY: Write a Tritina

A tritina is a derivative form of a sestina. The tritina is a ten-line form that consists of three tercets and a concluding line. Like in a sestina, the last word of each line repeats, but in a different order. The final line includes all three of the words. For example:

1
2
3

3
1
2

2
3
1

123 or 321 or any combination thereof.

The numbers represent the words that should be repeated at the end of each line. The final line should include all three words in any order. Our variations may be slightly different, but this is the basic idea.

We tried to write two tritinas: the first was left to each individual author but the second shared a uniform list of words: success, bubbles and grass. What can you come up with? If you really want to challenge yourself, try a sestina!

Activity: Write a Cinquain

This week's activity focuses on using a form of a cinquain to convey the message. Using syllables or words, the form follows this pattern for each line: 2, 4, 6, 8, 2. Two cinquains, one flipped over and stacked on top of the other, may be used to create a butterfly cinquain, as well.

An Assortment of Discontinuous Dreams

Credit: authenticafricanbronzesandceramics

An Assortment of Discontinuous Dreams

     I dreamed Warhead Detonator.

I dreamed the metal artworks of Benin and Ife,

                                I dreamed Urotoxic,

I dreamed moderate delegates fought, 

I dreamed, we don't know what happened...

I dreamed out in the Darkness.

I dreamed upon liability without fault.

I dreamed, with a tempo like a religious prayer.

I dreamed vocal jazz, with costumes and choreography.

I dreamed, "GET ME OUTSIDE!"

I dreamed anything can be collected into a set.

I dreamed...Multiple suicide stab wounds...

I dreamed. Indeed it was unclear...

I dreamed as the blood beat the skin...

I dreamed...Now lets try again...

I dreamed... she blushed again...

-Aly Zein Mohamed

Activity: Anaphora

When the beginning of each line is the same, it is called anaphora. This week, each line had to begin with "I dreamed" and was completed by finding random phrases and words from books in the library. Read some of the results below...

I dreamed the plays of Shakespeare.

I dreamed I don't get back home to my wife.
I dreamed a young philosophy student.
I dreamed Dr. Smith has poor bedside manner.
I dreamed tonal progressions begin and end at the borders of forms.
I dreamed I remember.
I dreamed in the introduction.
I dreamed and then you would like me.
I dreamed there was something hidden inside the Game Boy.
I dreamed before placing a tube cake in the cake server.
I dreamed the earlier experiments had shown that neural adequacy requires about 500 milliseconds for completion.
I dreamed I must stop this whole thing.
I dreamed he had been stupid.
I dreamed nothing miraculous after all.
I dreamed she and her two friends were being harassed.
I dreamed people who ain't too clever.
I dreamed by the rival treasure hunters.
I dreamed demilitarized.
I dreamed after every mass extinction.
I dreamed because it speaks to the secret.
I dreamed it used to be believed.
I dreamed they stopped to rest.

that fluttery birdy-bird feeling that's love

that fluttery birdy-bird feeling that's love
or whatever it is somewhere somehow dot dot dot
rains down every never-ending incessant sometimes

in such and such a season without reason
without wings or wishes or whatnot
that fluttery birdy-bird feeling that's love

above all big and tall tediums and mediums
or even a little itsy-bitsy teeny tiny small knot
rains down every never-ending incessant sometimes

and whew     it's not enough     i need more
all the time     i'm fine     how are you not
that fluttery birdy-bird feeling that's love

or another language     it's where we live
and what we are and what we thought
rains down every never-ending incessant sometimes

and in some way we fly or cry or hold on
or let go of it when we have fought
that fluttery birdy-bird feeling that's love
rains down every never-ending incessant sometimes

ACTIVITY: Create a Star Field

This week's creative writing club activity was taken from an exercise developed by Christian Bök called Impromptu #16, which was hosted by The Found Poetry Review during a National Poetry Month activity last year, and which instructed us about how to create a field of stars based on a found text.

While Bök's exercise suggested using source material from an antiquarian astronomy text, in the interest of time (club members only meet for one hour each week), we used material from Astronomy Books Online. Follow the link above if you want to read more about how the star fields were made or just look at the amazing creations that follow! Don't you wish you were part of it?

ACTIVITY: Spaghetti Strip Found Poems

Magazine articles were cut into word strips. Club members took handfuls of word strips and arranged them into spaghetti strip found poems. See there results below...

Words were taken from National Geographic magazine articles from October 2016 through June 2016.

The Book offered few clues

ACTIVITY: Ten by 10 by X by

Start at a book in the library. Turn to the tenth page. Count down to the tenth line and copy down the line and the source. Repeat the process ten times.

When finished, use the words as your "word bank" and collage something together.

ACTIVITY: Write a Tritina

A tritina is a derivative form of a sestina. The tritina is a ten-line form that consists of three tercets and a concluding line. Like in a sestina, the last word of each line repeats, but in a different order. The final line includes all three of the words. For example:

1
2
3

3
1
2

2
3
1

123 or
321

The numbers represent the words that should be repeated at the end of each line. The final line should include all three words in one of the two suggested orders. Our variations may be slightly different, but this is the basic idea.

ACTIVITY: Write an Epistrophe Poem.

Write a poem or a series of lines in which each line ends the same way.

Write a List Poem

Creative Writing Club members wandered around the LAS Building and made a list of words that they encountered on signs around the building.

attitude

like; there
in all the pirate's loot
you can be good
that many times

i love you
sat - thurs
don't make excuses
go see Miss Sarah

Compose an Erasure

1) Find an article in a magazine.
2) Obscure irrelevant words (or leave important words uncovered).
3) Combine with an image.
4) Cite your sources beneath your image.

Write a Cinquain

My graphic organizer on the whiteboard.

Wikipedia indicates that a cinquain is a poetic form that uses a 5-line pattern. There are different variations of the form, but we worked with the following structure:

Line 1: 2
Line 2: 4
Line 3: 6
Line 4: 8
Line 5: 2

Each line should include the number of syllables or, if that proved too difficult, words to include in each line. For an added twist, we added lines in reverse order to create a butterfly cinquain:

Line 1: 2
Line 2: 4
Line 3: 6
Line 4: 8
Line 5: 2
Line 6: 8
Line 7: 6
Line 8: 4
Line 9: 2

The explanation might not be clear, but, perhaps, by looking at what we made, it might become clearer.