Bernadette
Mayer's List of Journal Ideas:
Journals of:
* dreams
* food
* finances
* writing
ideas
* love
* ideas for
architects
* city
design ideas
* beautiful
and/or ugly sights
* a history
of one's own writing life, written daily
*
reading/music/art, etc. encountered each day
* rooms
*
elaborations on weather
* people one
sees-description
* subway,
bus, car or other trips (e.g., the same bus trip written about
every day)
* pleasures
and/or pain
* life's
everyday machinery: phones, stoves, computers, etc.
* answering
machine messages
* round or
rectangular things, other shapes
* color
* light
* daily
changes, e.g., a journal of one's desk, table, etc.
* the body
and its parts
*
clocks/time-keeping
*
tenant-landlord situations
* telephone
calls (taped?)
* skies
* dangers
* mail
* sounds
*
coincidences & connections
* times of
solitude
Other
journal ideas:
* Write once
a day in minute detail about one thing
* Write
every day at the same time, e.g. lunch poems, waking ideas, etc.
* Write
minimally: one line or sentence per day
* Create a
collaborative journal: musical notation and poetry; two writers
alternating
days; two writing about the same subject each day, etc.
* Instead of
using a book, write on paper and put it up on the wall (public
journal).
* and so on
...
Bernadette
Mayer's Writing Experiments
* Pick a
word or phrase at random, let mind play freely around it until a
few ideas
have come up, then seize on one and begin to write. Try this with
a non-
connotative word, like "so" etc.
*
Systematically eliminate the use of certain kinds of words or phrases from
a piece of
writing: eliminate all adjectives from a poem of your own, or
take out all
words beginning with 's' in Shakespeare's sonnets.
* Rewrite
someone else's writing. Experiment with theft and plagiarism.
*
Systematically derange the language: write a work consisting only of
prepositional
phrases, or, add a gerund to every line of an already existing
work.
* Get a
group of words, either randomly selected or thought up, then form
these words
(only) into a piece of writing-whatever the words allow. Let
them demand
their own form, or, use some words in a predetermined way.
Design
words.
* Eliminate
material systematically from a piece of your own writing until
it is
"ultimately" reduced, or, read or write it backwards, line by line or
word by
word. Read a novel backwards.
* Using
phrases relating to one subject or idea, write about another,
pushing
metaphor and simile as far as you can. For example, use science
terms to
write about childhood or philosophic language to describe a shirt.
* Take an
idea, anything that interests you, or an object, then spend a few
days looking
and noticing, perhaps making notes on what comes up about that
idea, or,
try to create a situation or surrounding where everything that
happens is
in relation.
* Construct
a poem as if the words were three-dimensional objects to be
handled in
space. Print them on large cards or bricks if necessary.
* Write as
you think, as close as you can come to this, that is, put pen to
paper and
don't stop. Experiment writing fast and writing slow.
* Attempt
tape recorder work, that is, recording without a text, perhaps at
specific
times.
* Make notes
on what happens or occurs to you for a limited amount of time,
then make
something of it in writing.
* Get
someone to write for you, pretending they are you.
* Write in a
strict form, or, transform prose into a poetic form.
* Write a
poem that reflects another poem, as in a mirror.
* Read or
write a story or myth, then put it aside and, trying to remember
it, write it
five or ten times at intervals from memory. Or, make a work out
of
continuously saying, in a column or list, one sentence or line, over and
over in
different ways, until you get it "right."
* Make a
pattern of repetitions.
* Take an
already written work of your own and insert, at random or by
choice, a
paragraph or section from, for example, a psychology book or a
seed
catalogue. Then study the possibilities of rearranging this work or
rewriting
the "source."
* Experiment
with writing in every person and tense every day.
* Explore
the possibilities of lists, puzzles, riddles, dictionaries,
almanacs,
etc. Consult the thesaurus where categories for the word "word"
include:
word as news, word as message, word as information, word as story,
word as
order or command, word as vocable, word as instruction, promise,
vow,
contract.
* Write what
cannot be written; for example, compose an index.
* The
possibilities of synesthesia in relation to language and words: the
word and the
letter as sensations, colors evoked by letters, sensations
caused by
the sound of a word as apart from its meaning, etc. And the effect
of this
phenomenon on you; for example, write in the water, on a moving
vehicle.
* Attempt
writing in a state of mind that seems least congenial.
* Consider
word and letter as forms-the concretistic distortion of a text, a
mutiplicity
of o's or ea's, or a pleasing visual arrangement: "the mill pond
of chill
doubt."
* Do
experiments with sensory memory: record all sense images that remain
from
breakfast, study which senses engage you, escape you.
* Write,
taking off from visual projections, whether mental or mechanical,
without
thought to the word in the ordinary sense, no craft.
* Make
writing experiments over a long period of time. For example, plan how
much you
will write for a particular work each day, perhaps one word or one
page.
* Write on a
piece of paper where something is already printed or written.
* Attempt to
eliminate all connotation from a piece of writing and vice
versa.
* Experiment
with writing in a group, collaborative work: a group writing
individually
off of each other's work over a long period of time in the same
room; a
group contributing to the same work, sentence by sentence or line by
line; one
writer being fed information and ideas while the other writes;
writing,
leaving instructions for another writer to fill in what you can't
describe;
compiling a book or work structured by your own language around
the writings
of others; or a group working and writing off of each other's
dream
writing.
* Dream
work: record dreams daily, experiment with translation or
transcription
of dream thought, attempt to approach the tense and
incongruity
appropriate to the dream, work with the dream until a poem or
song emerges
from it, use the dream as an alert form of the mind's activity
or
consciousness, consider the dream a problem-solving device, change dream
characters
into fictional characters, accept dream's language as a gift.
* Structure
a poem or prose writing according to city streets, miles, walks,
drives. For
example: Take a fourteen-block walk, writing one line per block
to create a
sonnet; choose a city street familiar to you, walk it, make
notes and
use them to create a work; take a long walk with a group of
writers,
observe, make notes and create works, then compare them; take a
long walk or
drive-write one line or sentence per mile. Variations on this.
* The uses
of journals. Keep a journal that is restricted to one set of
ideas, for
instance, a food or dream journal, a journal that is only written
in when it
is raining, a journal of ideas about writing, a weather journal.
Remember
that journals do not have to involve "good" writing-they are to be
made use of.
Simple one-line entries like "No snow today" can be inspiring
later. Have
3 or 4 journals going at once, each with a different purpose.
Create a
journal that is meant to be shared and commented on by another
writer--leave
half of each page blank for the comments of the other.
* Type out a
Shakespeare sonnet or other poem you would like to learn
about/imitate
double-spaced on a page. Rewrite it in between the lines.
* Find the
poems you think are the worst poems ever written, either by your
own self or
other poets. Study them, then write a bad poem.
* Choose a
subject you would like to write "about." Then attempt to write a
piece that
absolutely avoids any relationship to that subject. Get someone
to grade
you.
* Write a
series of titles for as yet unwritten poems or proses.
* Work with
a number of objects, moving them around on a field or
surface-describe
their shifting relationships, resonances, associations. Or,
write a
series of poems that have only to do with what you see in the place
where you
most often write. Or, write a poem in each room of your house or
apartment.
Experiment with doing this in the home you grew up in, if
possible.
* Write a
bestiary (a poem about real and mythical animals).
* Write five
short expressions of the most adamant anger; make a work out of
them.
* Write a
work gazing into a mirror without using the pronoun I.
* A shocking
experiment: Rip pages out of books at random (I guess you could
xerox them)
and study them as if they were a collection of poetic/literary
material.
Use this method on your old high school or college notebooks, if
possible,
then create an epistemological work based on the randomly chosen
notebook
pages.
* Meditate
on a word, sound or list of ideas before beginning to write.
* Take a
book of poetry you love and make a list, going through it poem by
poem, of the
experiments, innovations, methods, intentions, etc. involved in
the creation
of the works in the book.
* Write what
is secret. Then write what is shared. Experiment with writing
each in two
different ways: veiled language, direct language.
* Write a
soothing novel in twelve short paragraphs.
* Write a
work that attempts to include the names of all the physical
contents of
the terrestrial world that you know.
* Take a
piece of prose writing and turn it into poetic lines. Then, without
remembering
that you were planning to do this, make a poem of the first and
last words
of each line to see what happens. For instance, the lines (from
Einstein)
* When at
the reception
* Of
sense-impressions, memory pictures
* Emerge
this is not yet thinking
* And when.
. .
* Would
become:
* When
reception
* Of
pictures
* Emerge
thinking
* And when
* And so on.
Form the original prose, poetic lines, and first-and-last word
poem into
three columns on a page. Study their relationships.
* If you
have an answering machine, record all messages received for one
month, then
turn them into a best-selling novella.
* Write a
macaronic poem (making use of as many languages as you are
conversant
with).
* Attempt to
speak for a day only in questions; write only in questions.
* Attempt to
become in a state where the mind is flooded with ideas; attempt
to keep as many
thoughts in mind simultaneously as possible. Then write
without
looking at the page, typescript or computer screen (This is "called"
invisible
writing).
* Choose a
period of time, perhaps five or nine months. Every day, write a
letter that
will never be sent to a person who does or does not exist, or to
a number of
people who do or do not exist. Create a title for each letter
and don't
send them. Pile them up as a book.
*
Etymological work. Experiment with investigating the etymologies of all
words that
interest you, including your own name(s). Approaches to
etymologies:
Take a work you've already written, preferably something short,
look up the
etymological meanings of every word in that work including words
like
"the" and "a". Study the histories of the words used, then
rewrite the
work on the
basis of the etymological information found out. Another
approach:
Build poems and writings form the etymological families based on
the
Indo-European language constructs, for instance, the BHEL family: bulge,
bowl, belly,
boulder, billow, ball, balloon; or the OINO family: one, alone,
lonely,
unique, unite, unison, union; not to speak of one of the GEN
families:
kin, king, kindergarten, genteel, gender, generous, genius,
genital,
gingerly, pregnant, cognate, renaissance, and innate!
* Write a
brief bibliography of the science and philosophy texts that
interest
you. Create a file of newspaper articles that seem to relate to the
chances of
writing poetry.
* Write the
poem: Ways of Making Love. List them.
* Diagram a
sentence in the old-fashioned way. If you don't know how, I'll
be happy to
show you; if you do know how, try a really long sentence, for
instance
from Melville.
* Turn a
list of the objects that have something to do with a person who has
died into a
poem or poem form, in homage to that person.
* Write the
same poem over and over again, in different forms, until you are
weary.
Another experiment: Set yourself the task of writing for four hours
at a time,
perhaps once, twice or seven times a week. Don't stop until
hunger
and/or fatigue take over. At the very least, always set aside a
four-hour
period once a month in which to write. This is always possible and
will result
in one book of poems or prose writing for each year. Then we
begin to
know something.
* Attempt as
a writer to win the Nobel Prize in Science by finding out how
thought
becomes language, or does not.
* Take a
traditional text like the pledge of allegiance to the flag. For
every noun,
replace it with one that is seventh or ninth down from the
original one
in the dictionary. For instance, the word "honesty" would be
replaced by
"honey dew melon." Investigate what happens; different
dictionaries
will produce different results.
* Attempt to
write a poem or series of poems that will change the world.
Does
everything written or dreamed of do this?
* Write
occasional poems for weddings, for rivers, for birthdays, for other
poets'
beauty, for movie stars maybe, for the anniversaries of all kinds of
loving
meetings, for births, for moments of knowledge, for deaths. Writing
for the
"occasion" is part of our purpose as poets in being-this is our work
in the
community wherein we belong and work as speakers for others.
* Experiment
with every traditional form, so as to know it.
* Write
poems and proses in which you set yourself the task of using
particular
words, chosen at random like the spelling exercises of children:
intelligence,
amazing, weigh, weight, camel, camel's, foresight, through,
threw,
never, now, snow, rein, rain. Make a story of that!
* Plan,
structure, and write a long work. Consider what is the work now
needed by
the culture to cure and exact even if by accident the great
exorcism of
its 1998 sort-of- seeming-not-being. What do we need? What is
the poem of
the future?
* What is
communicable now? What more is communicable?
* Compose a
list of familiar phrases, or phrases that have stayed in your
mind for a
long time--from songs, from poems, from conversation:
* What's in
a name? That which we call a rose
* By any
other name would smell as sweet
* (Romeo and
Juliet)
* A rose is
a rose is a rose
* (Gertrude
Stein)
* A raisin
in the sun
* (Langston
Hughes)
* The king
was in the counting house
* Counting
out his money. . .
* (Nursery
rhyme)
* I sing the
body electric. . .
* These
United States. . .
* (Walt
Whitman)
* A thing of
beauty is a joy forever
* (Keats)
* (I summon
up) remembrance of things past
* (WS)
* Ask not
for whom the bell tolls
* It tolls
for thee
* (Donne)
* Look
homeward, Angel
* (Milton)
* For fools
rush in where angels fear to tread
* (Pope)
* All's well
that ends well
* (WS)
* I saw the
best minds of my generation destroyed by madness
* (Allen
Ginsberg)
* I think
therefore I am
*
(Descartes)
* It was the
best of times, it was the worst of times,. . .
* (Dickens)
* brave new
world has such people in it
*
(Shakespeare, The Tempest, later Huxley)
* Odi et amo (I hate and I love)
* (Catullus)
* Water
water everywhere
* Nor any
drop to drink
*
(Coleridge)
* Curiouser
and curiouser
* (Alice in
Wonderland)
* Don't
worry be happy. Here's a little song I wrote. . .
* Write the
longest most beautiful sentence you can imagine-make it be a
whole page.
* Set
yourself the task of writing in a way you've never written before, no
matter who
you are.
* What is
the value of autobiography?
* Attempt to
write in a way that's never been written before.
* Invent a
new form.
* Write a
perfect poem.
* Write a
work that intersperses love with landlords.
* In a poem,
list what you know.
* Address
the poem to the reader.
* Write
household poems-about cooking, shopping, eating and sleeping.
* Write
dream collabortations in the lune form.
* Write
poems that only make use of the words included in Basic English.
* Attempt to
write about jobs and how they affect the writing of poetry.
* Write
while being read to from science texts, or, write while being read
to by one's
lover from any text.
* Trade
poems with others and do not consider them your own.
* Exercises
in style: Write twenty-five or more different versions of one
event.
* Review the
statement: "What is happening to me, allowing for lies and
exaggerations
which I try to avoid, goes into my poems."
