Recollections of A Lonely Mind | 2010
This was one of my favorite exercises back when I was an undergrad student taking Creative Writing courses at the American University of Beirut. The way this assignment worked was as follows: We would choose any novel we liked, and randomly flip to any page then copy 5 verbs from that page. Then, again, we would flip to another random page and copy 5 nouns. And so the activity continued until we had a collection of random verbs, nouns, subjects, and adjectives. The best part? We had to create as much of a sensical poem as we could from that compiled list.
the dog is hiding from me
so my pocket-knife begins to whisper:
the baloney just lies there;
why are we out of coffee?
I realize it’s raining, but no scarf to wear.
The humming birds outside are bathing and scratching,
in my dreams, the smurfs smile in the snow.
The pope must vacuum too, it’s creepy --
Heat is lovely but does it achieve?
Why do we have only one tree yet many cherries?
Even tulips slowly swindle me as the sunshine penetrates:
Shall I rise?
The pacific ocean passionately tears for cancer,
I ponder about surfing in the grains of sand --
I must create…so…
I live on paper.