If you've read the three bed poems, you are probably thinking "wtf?" They are odd, it's true. They are also an experiment I conduct with my Writers' Craft class every semester, to try to get us in touch with the oneiric logic of dreams that so often differentiates poetry from prose.
We start by writing a descriptive paragraph about each of three beds: our earliest memory of a bed, our current bed, and our dream bed (all laws of physics, causality, economics, etc. are waived for this last paragraph). Each paragraph is then typed, double-spaced, blown up to fill a page, printed, and finally chopped into random snippets of 2 - 5 words.
Armed with an envelope full of our own words--our own memories, hopes, dreams, and realities--we then set about assembling poetry. I give the class three deliberately suggestive titles each day for three days, and we have the rest of the hour to sort our words into relevant piles, choose which poem to write, create our poems and glue them down to pieces of construction paper.
The end results are sometimes baffling, sometimes hilarious, sometimes poignant or disturbing. We see our own words on the page, but they are now saying things we never would have said. We discover other voices, other patterns, lurking in the things we say every day. We converse with our own echoes, dance with our own shadows. We make ourselves strange to ourselves, and so hopefully discover ourselves and others.
If you feel inspired to try it at home, do send me a link to the finished poem!
~tom
3 comments:
And the rulers of dreams? King&Queen Oneiros, of course. (Amjad).
Don't ever get rid of this activity, ever, sir! Every time I'm reminded of the bed poems, I want to spew some new words onto paper and do it all over again. Maybe I'll do that soon and get the ball rolling... I believe a "thank you" is in order, and also a "let's go!"
@Emily: You're welcome! Let's go! :)
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