1145 Experiments
DISREGARD THIS. WE ARE NOT USING THESE THIS SEMESTER. SOME OF THESE ARE IN THE JOURNALS. I JUST WANTED TO LEAVE THE LINK UP.
Besides looking at Beat writing from the outside, we want to look at it from the inside as well. This means participating in the process of making our own Beat texts. I call these writing
exercises "experiments" because for many of the Beats these were experiments. Also, we really don't know what kind of writing some of these processes and ideas will produce. It's like planting a unknown seed from a strange continent; maybe the seed will produce a rare and beautiful flower that blooms only in the moonlight, or maybe it will grow into an ugly plant that smells like the sewer department. It doesn't matter. We are more concerned with the process that with the product. These assignments are more or less S/U. I'm looking for two things: that you have gone through all of the steps and done all of the things that exercise calls for you to do, and that you have made an intelligent, interested, and thorough effort. If one of the steps is missing or unsatisfactory, you will receive a maximum of one point. If more than two of the required components are missing, the whole thing is unsatisfactory. Have fun with this.
Each experiement is worth 3%. A not so great experiment or one that is missing one of the steps will get a 1. A fair or okay experiment gets a 2. A good to excellent experiments gets a 3.
*All due dates are on the syllabus, this must be typed, and no I won't take it late*
Experiment #1
For the first experiment, we will look to William Burroughs and his cut-up method. With this method, one literally cuts up text and rearranges it. When one cuts and reassembles pieces of text, startling, and often odd, word combinations are formed. Burroughs felt that the world suffers from what he termed "word virus," that is to say that much of the world's oppresiveness and repressiveness originates in fixed, static ideas that are preserved and frozen through the unchanging medium of the printed word. To disrupt these patterns is to upset the concepts that they represent. Thus, new ideas and messages emerge from a cut-up text. Sometimes these new words can reveal the hidden agenda of the original text. Sometimes the new text makes little sense upon an initial reading.
There are a variety of ways to do this assignment.
Burroughs recommends in Minutes to Go taking a piece of text, cutting it into four equal squares, cutting words in half if need be, and then rearranging these squares to form another page, but there are lots of ways to cut-up a text. Cut it up into six long strips and reassemble, or cut the page into twelve square, or try triangles. You can cut-up a page parapraph-by-paragraph, or a page line-by-line, or a parapraph word-by-word.
Also, Burroughs mentions something called "the fold-in method" In this situation, you fold-in a page of text and then read it (if you've ever read the back page of a Mad Magazine, then you know what I'm talking about).
Here's a third way: Cut half a page of one text and combine with half a page of something else, and see what happens. You can also use the strips, squares, or triangles method with this as well.
This is a fourth way as well, the electronic cut-up engine.
cut-up machine Scroll to the very bottom; you will need to enter text into both boxes
another machine
You simple type or paste some text(s) in the screen, hit the button, and you're ready to go. While there may be some text ready to load on the website, you must choose text(s) to place in the generator not available on the site;You may use any text(s) you want. Don't forget that with any of these methods, you are not limited to a single page; you can use this method for multiple pages or stories. Choose the equivalent of at least half a page of text.
I want three things:
1) a copy of the original text(s) (Must be at least a page of text(s) total).
2) a copy of the cut-up/folded-in text after reassembly. Some people try to "smooth out" the syntax and so forth so that the text is easier to read.
3) a typed, double-spaced page explaining three things: why you picked the text(s) you picked, what method you choose and why, and what the new text seems to mean; Think creatively and do not tell me that the new text doesn't mean anything. Look for ways in which the new text pulls against or reinforces, perhaps both, the ideas of the original text.
Experiment #2
For the second experiment, review Jack Kerouac's "Essentials of Spontaneous Prose" and follow his methods for "spontaneous composition" also known as "kickwriting" or "wild form." Basically, think of a person, or a feeling, or a situation, or whatever you want, and fix it in your head. Just concentrate on the "thing" for a minute or too like a dragster reving its engine before a race. Then, start writing. In fact, like a dragster, haul ass, don't look behind you, and don't worry about what comes out. Write down whatever you are thinking as you are thinking it. Don't worry about capitalization. Don't worry about grammar with its "false colons" and "timid usually needless commas." Don't worry about punctuation. Kerouac says, use "the vigorous space dash" if you need punctuation. Go for ten minutes and set a clock so you don't keep stopping to check the time. Don't stop. Don't answer the phone. Don't answer the door. Don't scratch yourself. If you've run out of things to write about, keep writing about how you've run out of things to write about. Eventually, something will surface. You can always write about your surroundings or what you see or hear at the present moment. The only person reading this will be me, so don't worry about getting personal, or offensive, or silly in your writing; shut off the internal editor. Most people type faster than they write, so it makes sense to do this exercise on a computer. Also, I don't want to read your rushed, scribbled handwriting, so type it. For this assignment, I'll want to see two things:
1)Your ten minutes of typed, spontaneous composition.
2) A typed double-spaced page about the process, what you wrote about, and what you found yourself writing about. Rereading your work will help. For example, you may started off thinking about your parents and ended up writing about gambling on Mars. Why? What's the significance?
This page should not be spontaneously composed but should be thought out, edited, and revised if need be.
Experiment #3
For this experiment pick one of the following two options:
1) poem bomb
Take a look at Gregory Corso's "Bomb" on pages 174-78 in our text. "Bomb" was originally published as a long one-page fold-out in order to accommodate the unique format of the poem. The words of the piece were arranged in the actual shape of a mushroom cloud. Hence, the poem "Bomb" looked like an actual bomb. In other places, this is called "concrete" poetry, which is a written piece designed in the shape of its object. In this way, words serve double duty as written and visual expressions of the subject. I want you to compose a concrete poem of your own of at least half a page, or you can take one of the poems in our book or from the on-line reading and arrange it so that it produces a concrete poem. I'll need two things:
a) Your concrete poem; remember to give it a title.
b) A one-page double-spaced process memo either why you picked the poem you picked or the topic that you picked to write about, what shape/object you picked, and how you made the poem fit that shape.
2) Item in a fire. Imagine your living space is on fire. You have time to grab one item. What runs through your mind? What item do you pick and why? I'll need two double-spaced typed pages setting/describing the scene and explaining what item you pick and why.
Experiment #4
For this experiment pick one of the following three options:
1) In Henry Rollins' Black Coffee Blues, he uses the motif of coffee as his daily starting point and poetic anchor in his diary. He describes the cup of coffee and the emotions and the day surrounding it. For at least five days,
find your own poetic anchor and use it as a starting point for your writing. Begin each entry by mentioning your anchor. Try to write a few short paragraphs every day. The anchor must remain consistent, and it can be a certain place, a particular time of day, or after a daily event like eating dinner or having the first smoke of the day. Think of this sort of as a journal activity. I'll need two double-spaced typed pages.
2) A zen koan is a paradoxical question with no rational answer. Perhaps the most famous one of all is "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" In one typed double-spaced page make your own zen koan, discuss how you developed the koan, and give and explain the answer.
3) The theory of language relativity maintains that the language a speaker speaks determines the way that the speaker perceives reality. For example, in Vietnamese there are seventeen ways of saying "I." Thus, there are seventeen ways of thinking of oneself in a single word and without using additional words such as "I am happy." Find three letters or words of a language you don't speak and report on their meaning. Obviously, we all speak English, so that's out. Let's also rule out French, Latin, and Spanish. Try something like Chinese ideograms, Hebrew, Sanskrit, or Egyptian hieroglyphics. I only need one double-spaced typed page since this is going to require some sort of research. However, since this assignment is research based, I will need appropriate citations in the text and full publication information at the end of the text.
Experiment #5
For this assignment, I want you to compose an original poem. Take a look back at Ginsberg's "Supermarket in California." Write your own version of the poem in which you run into a famous person in some location. Be funny, sad, or whatever you want. Do not write a piece of prose and then chop it up to look like a poem. I don't want poems that rhyme or that are slaves to alliteration--we went on our way with woe. If you poem starts off
You were my heart,
but you ripped me apart.
I thought our love would last forever,
but you never
even wanted it to start.
revise it. Besides being full of cliches, the rhyme is awful and the words are pushed into it. Boo!
If you poem does this:
So many sad songs we sang
as the rain rumbles and rolls down the rail.
Clever cats count and drive crazy cars,
as dogs drive for dime bags and doughnuts.
make the alliteration more subtle. Remember, poetical "tricks" are like spaces: they should bring out the flavor but overuse will spoil it. Also, use original word choice but don't choose those "twenty-five cent" words just to show us all that you have a big vocabulary. For example, the stars shouldn't just "move through the sky." They should "streak through the sky" or "pace through the sky" or maybe even "saunter through the sky". If they "perambulate through the sky" or "circumnavigate the sky," then they may had made over a six-hundred on the SAT, but they have no business in this poem. Moreover, original and precise word choice demonstrates skillful use of language, not the mere use of "big" words. As always, obey the golden rule of writing: Show, don't tell.
We'll share some, maybe all, of these in class.
I need three things:
1) The finished, typed poem
2) The first draft, typed or hand-written, which should have cross-outs, and arrows, squiggles, insertions, and other things that indicate revision.
3) The second draft, typed or hand-written, with the same qualities as the first draft.
4) A typed one-page process memo explaining what you were trying to express, where you got the idea from, what poem(s) you used for (a) model(s), and why you made the changes that you made in the drafts.
*Note: While you will probably add, as well as take out, some material during the drafts, I want to see revision not just extensions and added material from draft to draft.*
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