Experimental Poetry 9: Anarchic poetry

You want anarchy? You got it! Anarchy is a state of disorder caused by rejection of rules and authority. It is the basis of a number of art movements including Abstract impressionism, Surrealism, Dadaism and punk rock. Poetry too has its anarchic poets. Read for example Ezra Pound, James Joyce or e. e. cummings. The latter rejected the use of upper case letters, hence the alternative presentation of his name. Edward Estlin Cummings as I will present him, experimented mercilessly not only with words, but also the form in which they were presented. He even misused punctuation deliberately to create feelings of disorientation, fragmentation and unease. In short, cummings used just about every aspect of language to create atmosphere and hammer home his messages. 

Method 15: Syntactic Deviance. Here, there is a total lack of regard for the conventional. You really will need to step outside your comfort zone, and this is where most of you will give up. And yet, if you do pursue this avenue of experimentation, you'll discover new ways of presenting your art of poetry which might otherwise have passed you by. Forget all the rules of grammar and punctuation. Spell things differently. Create sentences without verbs. Turn the writing upside down. Write diagonally or in reverse. Be absurd in what you write. Everything and anything goes. 

For me, this is one of Cummings' best poems: It dwells on loneliness and has the metaphor (a leaf falling) inside the word loneliness. It is inventive, disruptive and unexpected. In short, it is anarchic poetry. It breaks all the rules, including fragmentation of the words to signify a slow falling of the leaf. 

Method 16: Morphological Innovation. This is where you might dispense with conventional words and create your own. You might like to take a word and extend it to convey a meaning. Delicious becomes un-delicious, or chocolate becomes chocolate-ness. Go even further and blend words together to make new ones, or neologisms. A rabbit's burrow becomes its rabbitat and agonising over the loss of your luggage becomes bagonising. Be inventive. There are no rules, and you'll create your own language of poetry! These new words are known as portmanteaus and they are a part of morphological innovation. 

Method 17: Ad Nauseum. This Latin phrase means 'until sick'. This is the point in your poetry where you can go completely out on a limb and do totally unpredictable stuff. And then do it again, and again, and again, until it sickens, and then keep doing it until you run out of paper. 

Steve Wheeler

Previous posts in this series

Experimental Poetry 1: Found Poetry
Experimental Poetry 2: Stream of Consciousness
Experimental Poetry 3: Fake Translations
Experimental Poetry 4: Overlapping Voices
Experimental Poetry 5: Random Prompts
Experimental Poetry 6: The Movie Method
Experimental Poetry 7: Unexpected End Rhymes
Experimental Poetry 8: Calligrams

Image from Wikimedia used under a Creative Commons licence.

Experimental Poetry 2: Stream of Consciousness

This is the second post in my series on experimental poetry. There are many poets who, down through the ages, have tried to push the boundaries of poetry beyond what is expected, and in some cases, what some might consider acceptable. But poetry, as I will keep saying, has no rules. Look at the work of poets such as Ezra Pound, e e cummings and Edwin Morgan, and you will see this is true. 

One of the ways to break out of a poetic rut is to forget all the rules and techniques you already adhere to when you write (Yeah, I know. It's not easy), and just write freely and without any constraints. 

Method 5: Stream of Consciousness is a technique where you simply write (or speak into a recorder) at random, using whatever comes into your mind. Better still, try writing without even thinking - unconsciously.  Perhaps the results will be unusable or gibberish. It doesn't really matter. You are creating something. Just keep writing and do it very fast. Let your mind run away with you. Sooner or later there will be something that emerges that you could never have created by simply sticking to your tried and tested methods. 

This method might result in some really strange and original poetry, but even if it doesn't, the very act of writing freely without thinking too much will loosen you up as a poet, and allow you to exercise and develop your writing agility. Who knows, it might even make you stand out from the poetic crowd!

Steve Wheeler

Photo from RawPixel used under a Creative Commons Licence

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Experimental Poetry 1: Found Poetry