EXPERIMENTAL

TEXTS
EXPERIMENTAL POETRY
Experimentation is one aspect of all Modernist and
Postmodernist poetry, but experimental poetry makes a special point of
innovation, sometimes in the belief that current poetry is stereotyped
and inadequate, but more often for its own sake. Experimentation in
the arts is nothing like its counterpart in science, however, and there
are no theories to correspond with observations, fit in with other
theories, or broadly make sense. Even such concepts as foregrounding
and defamiliarization, basic to much literary theorizing, are more taken
as articles of faith than properly established. Visual poetry can be
intriguing and pleasing, but it is not poetry as commonly understood by
the term, and has therefore to be judged on different grounds, most
commonly those of the graphic arts, which it increasingly resembles.
TYPOGRAPHY
Concrete Poetry/ Shape Poetry
Concrete poetry is a poem whose layout or typography implies the
subject of the poem.
Swan and Shadow
John Hollander
Prose Poem
The prose poem is a kind of poetry that is written in paragraphs
which contains language play, images, and with instances of poetic
meter.
Performance Poetry/ Spoken – Word
Poetry
Performance or Spoken-word poetry’s significant characteristics is
that it is being recited in front of the audience in public spaces. It uses
vernacular language and appealing oral elements like music, recordings,
and other elements of signification.
Ten Experimental Poetry
Writing Techniques
Automatic writing
Try to write without thinking. Don’t worry about whether
the results will be good or not. Don’t even consciously try to
impose a form (stanzas and lines vs. sentences and
paragraphs) on your words while you’re writing them. Just
write, and do it swiftly. You’ll find that much of what you
produce with this method will be garbage, but there will
undoubtedly be a few lines that you can edit into something
better, or reuse in other poems. Who knows, you may even
find a fully-formed poem hidden in the detritus. Plus, not only
is this a good way to produce interesting materiel, but it also
increases your agility when it comes to writing in general.
Write without writing
Speak the poem to yourself as you're putting it together,
and only write it down once the whole thing’s done (or, if your
short-term memory’s not up to snuff, once every stanza or
every line is done). By doing this, you’ll keep the sounds of the
poem at the forefront of your mind. The goal is not necessarily
to find a pattern in the sounds, but merely to find sounds that
are satisfying in their own particular way. It’s easier, too, to
recognize when a line is awkward or false when you’re
speaking it aloud.
False translations
Choose a poem written in a language you don’t know, and
try to translate it into English as best you can. It helps if you’re
at least a little familiar with the language you are translating
from. For example, I know about twenty French words, and I
can guess what many of the cognates are. Because of this, it’s
a language I can attempt to translate from without it being too
easy or too difficult. Play around with how closely you stick to
the poem you’re translating. Don’t be too obsessed with
trying to get it exactly right word for word, but also stay within
certain limitations. Like the automatic writing technique, this
can either produce full poems, or lines and phrases that you
might want to borrow for other poems.
Paraphrase your own poems
First, write a poem while paying as much attention to its
sound and as little attention to its sense as possible. This can
take the form of a rhyming poem with a ton of assonance and
consonance, or it can be full of densely packed exuberant
nonsense that just sounds vaguely poetic. Next, try to
paraphrase that poem as best you can into a new poem. The
idea is to translate it from obscure English into sensible
English. While doing this, it’s best to try to impose a certain
amount of unity to the final product. If it’s too difficult to
shape it into a coherent narrative, try to at least create a
coherent mood or a series of images with something in
common.
Look to other forms of writing for
inspiration
There are so many different types of writing to be
inspired by: letters, pop quizzes, text conversations, blog
posts, stage-plays, lists of bullet-pointed notes,
advertisements, memes, tweets, etc. Even within each of
these categories, there are countless sub-categories. From
these types of writing, you can steal whatever elements you
so choose. For example, you can write a poem in which the
stanzas vaguely resemble a Twitter feed without blatantly
telling the reader that you’re doing this. Or you can write a
poem that more obviously mimics a Twitter feed. The choice is
up to you.
Set a timer
Give yourself a number of lines you must write, and a
specific time frame (five, ten, thirty minutes — or more,
depending on the poem’s length) in which you need to
complete the poem. This will force you to make bold choices,
and it will encourage you to go with your instincts. It will also
keep you from overworking a poem, which can drain it of its
crucial spontaneous energy.
Transcribe cacophony
Simultaneously listen to several videos or audio clips of
people talking. From that cacophony, try to transcribe it all in
real time as best you can. This is an impossible task, but that’s
the point. It may help if, as you’re transcribing, you try to find
some sense in the overlapping voices. Or, once the
transcription is done, you can heavily edit it to find any sense
embedded in it.
The DJ method
Open a bunch of books to random pages, and lay them out
around you like they’re records on a DJ’s turntable. Then start
writing a poem, but glance at a word or phrase in one of the
books every so often, and try to incorporate it into your poem
on the fly. The purpose of this is to keep your writing from
being predictable and monotonous. With the introduction of
this new word or phrase, you’ll have to take the poem in a
completely new and unexpected direction in order to
assimilate it.
Copy the rhythms of a preexisting free-
verse poem
It’s easier to borrow standard iambic meters from other
poems, but that also makes it easier to slack off while doing
so. By trying to exactly follow the rhythms of a preexisting
free-verse poem, you have to be extremely conscious of what
words you’re choosing, and how you’re going to fit them
together. This will keep you focused entirely on writing, and
will keep you from being distracted during composition.
Moodboards
Visual artists and designers often make moldboards to
help them hone in on a particular aesthetic, but they’re just as
suitable for poets. You can choose to either make a
moodboard of the specific images that you want to capture in
a poem, or you can use it to envision the general “vibe” of
what you want to write.