Free Idea Factory

I’d like to assemble a manuscript by theft. Take one poem each from a range of modern poetry books of the type that strike me as interchangeably blah. Truly interchange them by taking this random sampling and randomizing the order of the poems within a manuscript that I’d then send out (with its previously published credits intact, because you know nobody’s double-checking those) under a pseudonym to various publishers to see if I could get it accepted. Withdraw it every time its accepted and just keep score.

Attach large pages together at their four corners with jewelry loops to create one enormous sheet that will move in the wind beautifully. Write something on those pages, or paint them. A quilt of words. Hang it out on someone’s clothesline in the middle of the night. Sneak off.

Hi folks
Sometime may get round to this. Project involving printing the word `HERE` in large letters on a piece of cloth, placing it in various places in the landscape and photographing it. Use the map reference as title for each piece.

Of what use is it to apply the same thinking to creative problems all of the time?

Think of a creative problem you have been trying to solve for a while. Write it out and formalize a strategy. Then allow a friend, colleague, or someone you respect with knowledge about the subject to interpret the problem for themselves. Don’t tell them what your plan of attack was. Then, with their permission of course, implement their strategy instead of yours, despite your initial feelings about it.

Operating in unfamiliar territory can certainly be uncomfortable, but it can also produce great results in terms of creative development. And collaborating and dialogging with creatively oriented people and groups can certainly open you up to a whole new world of possibilities.

“Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.”
- Albert Einstein

Organizing readings here locally we’re always talking about what we can do to make it more than just an open mic, to give people a good solid reason for coming out. Having a feature + an open mic is a good combination. Having a theme seems to work, too. Combining with music or dance or some other art form also helps put butts in the chairs. Anyway, as we were brainstorming event ideas we came up with one good idea.

Everybody has at least one poem that drops the F-bomb. Performers will often express a concern over whether it’s appropriate or not to read that poem at any given event.

We’re thinking it could work (and be a heckuva fun evening, and a decent crowd draw) to host an evening of nothing but poems that have the word “fuck” in them. If the poem doesn’t drop the F-bomb, it can’t be read. No exceptions. So, that’s part one of the idea: an evening devoted to dropping the F-bomb. Everyone walking in knows what to expect, everyone reading knows what they can uncork, and a good time is had by all.

Here’s where it gets better.

I think so many people have great poems that drop the F-bomb that the evening could be structured NOT as a “show up with your F-bomb poem” and sign up to read, but, instead, submit your F-bomb poem to an editor who could hand select the best ones so it’s an event that has some fucking standards!

It gets better still.

If this event were to occur, say, once a month or so, then at the end of the year, all the poems selected by the editor could appear in a print anthology.

And finally…

One thing that’s sure to happen if you remove the “open mic” aspect and go with a straight platform of preselected readers is a decrease in audience. So to address that fact, the evening gets structured as
only mostly preselected readers and then there’s an open mic to follow. The best poem from the open mic (as judged by audience response) earns a wildcard entry into the anthology.

Maybe you’ve seen a poet performing a poem while an interpretive dancer performs alongside them, interpreting the words into motion. Now picture two interpretive dancers who are also poets. Each person voices their own poem while interpretive dancing the other person’s poem. Like rubbing your belly and patting your head at the same time, only much, much harder. Makes my brain hurt just thinking about it.

and then interview yourself about it. write a manifesto, share it with others. make it real. write work in support of the movement.

I write short(er) poems. In crit, I often receive a comment like “I’d like to see more here.” Sometimes it’s legit. I jumped out of a murky pool of the subconscious because it got too, well, scary in there. The suggestion for rewrite is always “why don’t you continue where you left off and…” And what? Ramble on directionless? No thanks.

While leading an adult writing group recently, one of the participants wrote a similar “jumping away” poem. There was more to be said. Instead of suggesting she continue on where she left off, I asked her if she’d be comfortable trying this instead:

Write the poem out again, leaving plenty of room between the lines.
Respond to each line individually and see what happens - maybe a new revelation, or maybe the poem takes off in a completely new direction.

The point is, you’re not just jumping back into the same murky pool.

You know those gel packs you can get that go in the freezer to get cold but they never actually freeze hard but say softish so you can mold them to the sore spot? I’d love to see gel pack gloves that I could slip my hands into so that I could get soothing relief on my fingers, hands, and wrists all at once.

Picture one of those waist-high in plastic balls pools like they have in some of the playlands for children. But each ball has a word written on it like they put numbers on lottery balls. And each ball is wrapped with strips of Velcro hook fabric. The walls of the space are covered in Velcro loop fabric. Jump in, swim around, fling poems onto the walls.