How To Steal Your Way To A Stellar Poem

A lot of you have been asking, so here’s a little more about how I craft a klepto-collaborative poem.

My most recent efforts (available in the previous posts) for TEDx have been created from TED Talks by writing down words, word pairings and phrases as the event is going on in real-time.  During the breaks, I use the words like puzzle pieces–whose shapes adapt to any piece they’re put next to–to juggle the text and ideas around until I have something that I like, that’s different enough from the speaker’s usage to be fresh, unexpected, inventive, and yet still hold some of the spirit and flavor of each speaker’s intent.  I only have so much time during the breaks to play with the building block puzzle pieces of text, and then after the very last speaker of the day I have to go right up to the stage and read what I’ve crafted.  All the text I’ve lifted from the last session has to be woven into the overall tapestry without any break time in which to prepare.

It’s challenging; it can even be scary; it’s always exhilarating.  It’s one of the most creative and all-out adventuresome and gloriously fun experiences that I have.

This adrenaline-zipping live-action version of klepto-collaborative evolved from the  original version of “stealing” text from the printed page, as I did with the poems of Sylvia Plath. An excerpt of which lives here.  Right under that excerpt is the basic How To, written for Ann Leary‘s Wicked Good Life blog readers who were interested in understanding how I arrived at the end product .  Which is this:

I made copies of about a dozen of my
favorite Plath poems, then took a pen and went through them
underlining word pairings, phrases, even single words, that I liked &
felt drawn to. I typed them all up and then cut them out (though you
could simply use the cut & paste feature of a word processor), then
arranged and rearranged the strips of paper on my desk – like a
flexible kind of word puzzle. Instead of a picture, the puzzle pieces
will form a story; instead of the puzzle pieces only fitting together
one right way, they will fit together in almost-endless ways. You get
to decide, in the end, which words/phrases will go next to each other,
to create images and ideas – to tell a story.

I use this as a poetry exercise when I teach, and children,
especially, really respond to the hands-on interactivity, to the wide-
openness, to the surprising mix of images and ideas that can occur.
For example, if a handful of words chosen from a text list among them,
say, black, pillow, dog and shadow – it’s common, and quite OK, for
black to end up the describing word for the dog or the shadow, even
the pillow. It gets exciting, though, when the more unpredictable
choices happen – like shadow dog or dog-black shadow. And isn’t the
idea of a pillow dog much more fun than the every day dog pillow?

Often, I’ll pair two kids, have one choose the text and write it down
on strips of pre-cut paper – then have the other kid arrange the word
puzzle into a poem. They write that poem in their notebooks, and then
the word-chooser gets to mix up and then remake those same words into
his/her own poem. They always seem to think it some kind of wonderful
magic that such different poems/images/stories can be crafted out of
the same group of words. (and, truth be told, it is magic. my favorite
kind.)

A klepto-collaborative found poem can be created using any kind of existing text, from
books to songs to newspapers to the words taken from billboards as you
pass them on a road trip (only for passengers, of course!). It can be
a therapeutic exercise, “recycling” words/phrases from your divorce
decree, or taking a stack of letters from your child and recrafting a
poem/letter/story back to them. It’s just like refrigerator poetry
magnets, except you get the freedom to steal choose the words/phrases from
any source you like.

I’ve also created poems where I both “klepto” from and “collaborate” with myself.  One such poem was published in Luna (a literary magazine I love and highly recommend) by Ray Gonzalez, a poet I greatly admire.  Having him deem any poem of mine reader-worthy was quite the thrill. (and still is, every time I think about it, if I’m being honest!)

Here’s a variation of that poem published in Luna.  What I love about this hop-scotching form is that I can create thousands of variations.  Take note of when the original given set of lines/words/ideas leaves off and the new permeations of those words begin:

O N C E

There was an immaculate home, plastic over the furniture.

There was a freckled girl, shadows along her arms.

There was a beloved dream, horses across a beach.

There was a volatile mother, a silver-plated hairbrush.

There was a forgotten dollhouse, echoes inside the attic.

There was a Bewitched lunchbox, secrets on a merry-go-round.

There was a blue closet, a flashlight beside books.

There was a beleaguered father, Jack Daniel’s by the TV Guide.

There was a blind church, Christ on her tongue.

There was a pale woman, stories behind her eyes.

There was a stray cat, grace against the window.

There was a broken promise, blood on her hands.

There was a lost baby, hope down the river.

There was a falling sky, breadcrumbs in the woods.

There was a volatile grace, plastic on her dream.

There was a Bewitched cat, a silver-plated promise.

There was a blind father, hands across tongue.

There was a dollhouse mother, echoes over horses.

There was a stray grace, blood over secrets.

There was a falling cat, a promise in a lunchbox.

There was a plastic mother, TV Guide on a merry-go-round.

There was a freckled cat, a woman by Christ.

There was a stray father, grace in the secrets.

There was a broken flashlight, horses in the church.

There was a volatile home, a hairbrush across hands.

There was a beloved baby, arms in the sky.

There was a TV Guide hope, Jack Daniel’s tongue.

There was a broken girl, a merry-go-round in her mother.

There was a Bewitched attic, horses in her lunchbox.

There was a freckled flashlight, grace inside books.

There was a beleaguered hope, secrets against the shadows.

There was a forgotten girl, breadcrumbs along Christ.

There was a Jack Daniel’s sky, stories in hands.

There was a falling home, a baby in the closet

There was a promise window, freckled beloved.

There was a blood church, the Bewitched woods.

There was a Bewitched father, broken by the mother.

There was a dollhouse mother, attic inside the woman.

There was a lost woman, blue over the baby.

There was a plastic baby, blood on the girl.

There was a pale girl, beloved by the father.

There was a forgotten father, falling across Christ.

There was a beleaguered Christ, broken over secrets.

There was a baby secret, blind inside the closet.

There was a closet girl, forgotten by grace.

There was a grace river, broken furniture.

There was a merry-go-round grace.

There was a silver-plated stray hope.

There was a window behind her tongue.

There was a pale promise in her stories.

There was a freckled sky inside the lunchbox.

There was a hairbrush behind the blind secrets.

There was a dream falling across dollhouse eyes.

There was a blind Christ in her merry-go-round arms.

There was a flashlight father inside Jack Daniel’s church.

There was a pale blue church cat beside a girl.

There was a TV Guide girl by her mother.

There was a shadows mother against her father

There was an echoes father lost across a river.

There was a blood river inside the baby.

There was a breadcrumbs baby inside the woman.

There was a sky woman inside a church.

Who was a mother.

Who was a girl.

Who was a cat.

Who was Christ.

Who was a baby.

Who was her father.

Who was the sky.

Who was.

Who was.

Who was.

***

OK, now, if you want to keep innovating from your original creation, you can also invoke Wheel of Fortune’s pantry of for-sale vowels convention and buy a few words that aren’t in your primary text.  Like this:

There was a father

whose baby girl

had pale blue freckles.

Immaculate sky

echoed

behind her dollhouse eyes.

Grace shadows

tongued

across her dreams.

Bewtiched hope

merry-go-rounded

inside her.

Forgotten secrets,

silver-plated stories,

rivered along her blood.

Her mother’s plastic hands

were like broken furniture

in the attic.

Like lost lunchboxes,

beleaguered promises,

stray fallen breadcrumbs.

Her father’s church arms

were like books

about beloved horses.

Like a cat waiting in the window,

Christ’s hairbrush,

a flashlight in after-dark woods.

***

I klepto-collaborated that poem, just now, for you–that’s how easy it is

I’ll post some more examples soon.  I hope you’ll happen upon words and phrases worth klepto-ing and “collaborate” with some writers and poets whose visions wake you up and make you want to play about with artifacts of the worlds they’ve created.

Please share your klepto-collaborative poems with me, if you’re so inclined.  I’d really, really love that ~

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