Duo Corpse Exercise
This is
another variant of the Exquisite Corpse exercise, which as we know, was
invented by the Surrealists in
The two person
version, for me, has been the most fulfilling variant of this form because you
can often develop a habit with a regular partner and write after having shared
experiences. For me they have involved hiking and backpacking trips in the
Northwest wilderness, during jazz concerts and even after sex.
Method:
Each person
starts a poem on a lined sheet of paper and continues with a word or two short
ones on the next line. Each person then folds the paper along the line
concealing all but the word or two on the 2nd line, hopefully
leaving the situation open. One of the great facets of a regular partner and
regular practice of this form is that you begin to learn how to leave the lines
open for a partner. By starting two poems simultaneously, you have no time to
think, but will often find that lines will start coming to you BEFORE the page
is given to you by your partner. I really feel that this is an example of Rupert Sheldrake’s Morphogenetic
Field theory, because you’ll often find that each poem has a certain resonance
and you can learn how to tune into that with practice. Charles Olson, Robert
Duncan and William Carlos Williams were poets in the mid-20th Century that
understood the importance of seeing the poem as a field and this way of
understanding is enhanced with the notion of morphogenetic fields. (Wikipedia suffers from their mechanistic bias, but you can
get something from the Wiki entry on Morphic
Fields.)
You may want
to use shorter pages to create these poems, something about 1/4th
the size of a regular sheet of paper, but once you get into it, it takes on a
life of its own. Learn how to fold, rolling each line back while looking at it,
similar to rolling a cigarette, so as not to turn it over and get a glimpse of
the content, or turn the page itself into something difficult on which to
write. You’ll find it is true that folding is the hardest part of this
exercise. Two examples:
Blueberry Corpse
They’re all over these hills.
They ’re hard to pass up, these
fat ones in clumps, bell-shaped
are
best. They’re in clumps!
They’re juicy & a whole mouthful
is an opportunity
to take what you
need, they’re
on the trail &
on your
butt from sliding down fields.
Those are Gentian blue flowers.
Two or handfuls of sweetness still
alive where hills are red & bear
shit is
interspersed with their skins.
The juice! My psora disappears w/ each
mouthful,
so different than dead, just
picked low to the ground.
Genetic
integrity. Give me more. Here’s some
for you another w/ part of its flower still
attached. The stain’s in my boots, on
my tongue blue/ your ass blue,
we ’re grateful to have them along
our path festooned w/ them our
memory of blue
sweetness.
9.15.01, 12:50 pm,
Not
Yet Fred Anderson’s Corpse
The suns inside me explode
when
he
comes back to his
seat lifted became blur & rhythm
and
his
hair all the way down
his frame drum Om-like
say
he
thought he saw a
white fire corona reflect,
become
a
cloud in which to get
lost in trance state overtone
voodoo
happens
when he pulls out
that Velvet voodoo blue pant
voodoo
again
or is it cowbells?
The bow no melody necessary
ONLY one
tiny light
across centuries a SLap
a
full-grown
flower
looks down asks is the floor solid
or
look
behind & grab another
stick the fork in we’ve
become
the
sweetest song
every note feels wicked.
9:59P – October 29, 2001
Rainier Valley Cultural Center
I’ve used different
fonts here to illustrate the contribution of each individual. In the first we
had one agreement, to write about blueberries without using the word.
Repetition can
be an effective trope in this method. Again go for the concrete image as much
as possible. Abstractions here, like in any poem, must be earned. When you are
trying to write an occasional poem, this form can help ensure that you’ll get
something beyond sentiment and full of what Allen Ginsberg calls Surprise Mind, a quality difficult for
some people to get into their own work. The trick is to use an exercise like
this as an opening and be able to have the same kind of liberated feeling when
writing in other contexts.
Paul E. Nelson
11:54A –
4.13.09