The following exercise will not raze all the ideological impediments to revision that we face. It will, however, help establish the communal possibilities of workshop; suggest that poems do not come only in fits of inspiration after musing for hours upon flowers, love, or death; suggest that writing and revising are subject to mistakes, accidents, and frustrations; and allow students to see their collective development as critics of their own work, as poets. Typically, this is the first exercise I do with poetry classes on the first day, after we’ve introduced ourselves and our favorite books in a variation of the “Name Game,” so the desks have already been arranged into a circle.
To begin, assign a brief writing exercise, no longer than 10 minutes. The content of the prompt isn’t important, but I suggest using something evidently “silly” but with clear direction like: “Write as many lines about your favorite super villain as you can manage in the given time. Include at least one metaphor (or simile) in each line.” As the students write, write alongside them, following the same constraints.
When the timer goes off, take the paper on which you’ve written a few lines and crumple it into a ball, then throw that crumpled piece of paper into the center of the circle. Ask your students to do the same. The idea is to demonstrate, physically, that it’s often necessary to throw away writing—even writing that may have been fun or good.
After a mini-lecture on the need to experiment and throw away, ask for three volunteers. Have the volunteers enter the circle and pick up a few of those crumpled balls of paper, at random, and smooth them out. Ask the volunteers to read two or three of the exercises to themselves, selecting their favorite line from each. Then record each line on the chalkboard, making whatever connections and transitions you can quickly make. Here, however, it’s important to act only as a recorder and a grammar-smith. Don’t change the metaphors and don’t eliminate any clichés.
The result should be a brief poem that the class can, collectively, rearrange and edit. Ask the class for help and continue revising until students seem pleased or the class session ends. Record the poem and save it. As the semester continues, return to the poem at the beginning of class and solicit advice from the students, leaving the decisions to them, but emphasizing a single technical idea, like rhythm, image consistency, line breaks, or concision with each editing session. Supplement these editing sessions with additional five-minute writing periods to add lines, providing direction based on the curriculum and your view of the in-process poem.
By the end of the term, the students will have created a poem that began with a “silly” prompt and that they re-invented together. Much like we do, regardless of what the bylines say.
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Les Kay is the author of Home Front (Sundress Publications, 2016), The Bureau (Sundress Publications, 2015), and Badass (Lucky Bastard Press, 2015) as well as co-author of Heart Radicals (ELJ Publications, 2016). He’s published poems in journals such as PANK, Redactions, and Whiskey Island.