Experimental Writing

 

I. Computer Wigwam Laundry Mix:

Love your minivan

Types of drunks take advantage

Bottomless brunch is a fickle emotion

When is Wawa unsolicited love

You didn’t ask for Yummy Yami

Graphic design hammocks

Kitchen sink blues

Burritos the magnitude of Guam

Tie-dying sushi all wrong

Bumblefuck the honey

An ode to leopard print

Rampant bacon wrap

Splintering Buzzfeed ovaries

Killing the dry shampoo game

Specie-flow jumbo tampon

Strip club bouncer job

Socio [cobblestone] path

Full frontal scandal

Supercharge your fiasco

Supermarket smackdown

Bury the ratchet

Museum for corruption

Bane and the Boon

Moon humped over the cow

For-profit collages

Line corp genetics

Modulated forensics

Saturated kinetics

Pita bread wasteland

Can, can soda you do da Can-can?

Underbunk me captain

Curb bans on double play

Titanium bleach pocketbooks

Lice runs rampant

Throwback tortellini’s

Take advantage of mahjong

Turn toast into comfort

First time’s the harm

Chocolatey battleship

Colors other than white

Crunchetize my sanity

Others other than white

Seize the offer

Strong hand quake

Easy bake McLovin

Linoleum bubble wrap

Titanium-lined ratatouille

Hot cross knickerbockers

Taste the oven baked nuclear waste

Telepathy dictatorships bulldoze weeds

Would you like a slice of vintage wedding suicide

Pumpernickel bank deposit

Taste misinformed

Dress me on the side?

Skilled skillet schizophrenia

Hypnotized by colorblind love notions

Why not supercharge your Adam’s Apple

Swallow her metabolism

Quick, get In-N-Out

Locate the computer wigwam

The size of her life after gluten

Foot in mouth flops

What’s for the plastic bag?

You had me at heel toe

Bulbs of carcass auto engines

Start your weak right

Side swept stable angles

Killing me hardly with his worms

Mother load full of flunk

Suspend the Ziploc containers

Contain me, contain her

Spittle me lies and liason poise

Do you want to be fried with that?

Bagel with a hint of gravity

Keep her hot seat sealed

Stable full of thorough reads

Shrimp the skip scampi

Life is like a Bach of pawprints

Legalize the laundry list!

 

 

 

II. Acrostic Chance

 

YEVGENY ZAMYATIN. PENGUIN CLASSICS. WE

yet finished the process

every woman you meet

victims of the 200- Years War if there still remained

golden badge on each chest

every man, too, of course must have

Now, that’s something I simply cannot get through my

Yes.

 

zooming along behind us in its own golden

am merely copying out here, word for word, what was

morning, with six-wheeled precision

You free?

at hand is the great, historic hour

that precise

I-330 (now I saw her number). To my left was O,

No matter how limited their powers of reason might

 

point I have found everything in life clear (not for

everlasting glass as the Green Wall, as all of our structures.

not permit capital punishment for one man, but they per-

gleaming in the sun. And every pace carries you

us a harmonious, pleasant and

I didn’t know. He bent in two

not a crime! No,

 

capable of doing so is required

life (ours)? If people used to wander

A thousand years

saw: a microscopic bubble of saliva appeared on his lips and

sobered me. I was myself once again.

ago your heroic forebears subjugated the

compose treatises, epic poems, manifestos

stupid vain clattering of the strings. I laughed.

 

Work, eating, defecating and so on. From this you can see how the mighty power of

equations—you see this in the most ordinary, the most everyday things.

 

 

 

III. Tzara’s Hat (Solo):

 

You’ve Got Mail:

 

Nonpartisan, non-advocacy data and analysis

I’ve been posting pics of pretty girls making ugly faces since 2011

Post anything, from anywhere.

$55/couple for food and alcohol

It’s honestly a great crew so far.

Served in a mason jar.

The original block-rocking, genre-defying bass music party

Hiatus away from clubs, festivals, and warehouses

A Skillz and Let’s Be Friends talk about the sounds

Fit in the eclectic clubbing atmosphere

Chilled prosecco and succulent pork loin with Parma ham

Chocolate leather banquettes and glitzy mirrored walls

Floral prints for warmer days

Add sparkle stitching

Evergreen Chinese

Stolen moments in the sun

Made in the suede

Owls tomorrow!

Afternoon tea with free-flowing bubbles

University to hire alcohol

We started #1 talking shit and three years later we’re still at it

Me before getting gang banged

Do the twist: Easy lived-in braids

Snaps for Vagina Monologues!

40th towards Apes on the 4K side

Les civilistes francais face a l’oeuvre

Aqua Shard sister

Taco Contest Co-Taster

I didn’t think I’d win either, until I did

My favorite part is watching

Sharing those cutesy automated videos

Lets make no bones about it

The subplots and politics of figureskating

Guys I’m still not over this selfie

It was a pleasure drinking from your cup

Road trips, cropped tops, best friends forever

Editorial Daytrippin’

Join us on Tuesday

Tastebud Tripping

Show UR LUV with Cali Sun

Picturesque waterside dining

The Case Interviewer’s Mindset

Don’t use Beta

Figures Carved on the Living Rock

Your Dashboard had a great week

Hix Oyster & Chop

Lace lookbook

New Crosley Record Player

The most legendary act of SEO trolling ever

Put heroin in my Happy Meal

Delivery status Notification (Failure)

Keep crushing!!

Moved to third floor lounge

Burger afternoon

Hip Hop Hooray!

A whole heap of deliciousness

Eyebrow tutorial

What the Longform Backlash is All About

Propinion: Pros and Porn

Sup, Ladies.

If you’re into sound

Is the hotness.

So restaurant. Much cuisine.

Get involved with Biz

Pound help

Copa COME NOW

Semesters & Seamstresses

30 years of mac

Helping the hitchhiker through hell

Let’s get intimate.

Kill the noise

The cinnamon club

Free beanies! Stock up

Basics just got better

Remade for you…

Crazy bear plate tasting

Sign here to wish the first lady

Throw a crossbody bag

Sang a fantastic song about time machines and unicorns

 

 

 

IV: Language is a Virus Generated Poem:

 

Pickled Donkey’s Pickled Donkey

I chew my ladders and all the nail file peels trousers;

I remember my pushpins and all is flap again

(I astonish I wiggle you up inside my square.)

 

The poppy seeds go groaning out in corrupt and funky,

And zainy disco mugs in:

I overflow my cereal and all the dishwasher bathes apricot.

 

I suspended that you whistled me into marsh

And curl me sassy, scrubed me quite bersek.

(I astonish I wiggle you up inside my square.)

 

Mattress boils from the porridge, opera’s bottle caps bounce:

Interrogate ash and gravel’s mascara:

I overflow my cereal and all the dishwasher bathes apricot.

 

I meddled you’d drip the way you blush,

But I bleach sugar-coated and I soak your oats.

(I astonish I wiggle you up inside my square.)

 

I should have bludgeoned a caveman instead;

At least when diving board screws they sniff back again.

I overflow my cereal and all the dishwasher bathes apricot.

 

(I astonish I wiggle you up inside my square.)

 

 

 

 

V. Cut up

 

Original Poem:

Cosmopolitan Greetings by Allen Ginsberg

Stand up against governments, against God.

Stay irresponsible.

Say only what we know & imagine.

Absolutes are Coercion.

Change is absolute.

Ordinary mind includes eternal perceptions.

Observe what’s vivid.

Notice what you notice.

Catch yourself thinking.

Vividness is self-selecting.

If we don’t show anyone, we’re free to write anything.

Remember the future.

Advise only yourself.

Don’t drink yourself to death.

Two molecules clanking us against each other require an observer to

become

scientific data.

The measuring instrument determines the appearance of the phenomenal

world after Einstein.

The universe is subjective.

Walt Whitman celebrated Person.

We are observer, measuring instrument, eye, subject,

Person.

Universe is Person.

Inside skull is vast as outside skull.

What’s in between thoughts?

Mind is outer space.

“Each on his bed spoke to himself alone, making no sound”

First thought, best thought.”

Mind is shapely, Art is shapely.

Maximum information, minimum number of syllables.

Syntax condensed, sound is solid.

Intense fragments of spoken idiom, best.

Consonants around vowels make sense.

Savour vowels, appreciate consonants.

Others can measure their vision by what we see.

Candour ends paranoia.

 

Cut Up:

Cosmopolitan Thinking

scientific as

Syntax Greetings

 

Stand

Vividness data outside condensed up is

 

The skull sound against self-selecting measuring

What’s is governments

If instrument in solid against we determines between

 

Intense God don’t the thoughts?

Mind fragments

Stay show appearance is of irresponsible anyone of outer spoken

Say we’re the space idiom only free phenomenal

 

world

“Each best what to after on

 

Consonants we write Einstein his around know anything

 

The bed vowels &

Remember universe spoke make imagine the is to sense

Absolutes future subjective himself

Savour are

Advise

Walt alone vowels Coercion only Whitman making appreciate

Change yourself celebrated no consonants is

Don’t Person sound”

First

 

Others absolute drink

We thought can

Ordinary yourself are best measure mind to observer thought their includes death

measuring ”

 

Mind vision eternal

Two instrument is by perceptions molecules eye shapely what

Observe clanking subject Art we what’s us

Person is see vivid against

Universe shapely

 

Candour

Notice each is

 

Maximum ends what other Person information paranoia you require

Inside minimum

notice an skull number

Catch observer is of yourself to

become vast syllables

 

 

 

 

Commentary:

          Reading Bruce Andrews’ poetry was a very enjoyable experience for me. It was extremely refreshing to see how Bruce transcended conventional conceptions of traditional poetry, both in content and method. I was particularly struck by the way he combined random phrases to generate rich, original content. Several lines that jumped out at me include “Fucks poetry for money,” “The aftermath of yes,” “Words cut themselves up,” “VIP democracy,” “Shut the phone up,” and “saltwater babies.” It is fascinating how these combinations seem to provide new perspectives on society; by breaking up and recombining phrases in new ways, readers are led to question the way we order our world. Unusual relationships are illuminated, and everyday conversation excerpts take on an entirely new character. Andrews’ statement that “We’re all idiom now” can perhaps betaken literally, as we are led to question the sometimes idiotic way we structure our society and culture.

           I was also particular intrigued by Andrews’ writing method, and tried to imitate it myself in the first exercise above. I did not have access to a paper-cutter, but I wrote down over 100 phrases I heard or read throughout the week on separate slips of paper, and then rearranged them on my bedroom floor. I found the process a bit tedious, but it was very helpful to visually lay out and pair each of the phrases in front of me across a large surface. I could also randomize my pairings by turning the pieces of paper over. Unlike Andrews, I could not store the pieces of paper for a prolonged period of time before I created my poem. Because I collected so many phrases, however, I did forget where I heard many of them originally; this helped me to randomize my final combinations and to distance the original words from specific occasions. Like Andrews, I felt my process was much more focused on editing than plain writing.

          For my acrostic poem, I used every word on the cover as my key phrase. This included the author’s name, the book’s publisher, and the book’s title. I especially liked the irony that the publisher (Penguin Books) was included as a keyword. This is a publisher most Americans are familiar with, yet the book is a classic in Russian literature. I feel that the book’s title “We” captures this unique bridge between American and Russian cultures. Lastly, because I chose this book randomly from my bookshelf, I was confronted with a few problems. For example, the book actually began on page 2, and I thus had to use the Introduction page as page 1. For the line beginning with the letter “U,” I also had to begin with a word on the 23rd page rather than the 21st, as there were no words beginning with U on the prior 2 pages. Some people might argue that this book was therefore not the most ideal selection for this exercise. However, I feel that because the exercise focuses specifically on randomization, this book was actually a very suitable choice. In my opinion, it is the exceptions that make poetry interesting, after all.

          For my third poem, I randomly selected and then reordered various phrases from my email in the past two months. This process was a bit time consuming, as I had to manually sift through the bodies of many emails. However, I found that using my email as a source text added a bit of humor to the poem, as well as bits of Penn culture, pop culture, and my personal interests. My fourth poem was created using the online “Language is a Virus Generator.” I used another random generator website to select each verb, noun, and adjective. I feel the least ownership over this poem, but I do still acknowledge it as my own creation. My final poem is a Cut-up of the “Cosmopolitan Greetings” by Allen Ginsberg. I had originally planned to type up the poem, print it, manually fold it and cut it, and then rearrange the fragments. However, my printer was not working, so I used the Cut-Up generator. I am very fond of the end result, especially the new phrases “Syntax Greetings,” “the bed vowels,” and “become vast syllables.”