Find a line in your classmate’s poem or junkyard quote that strikes you. Steal it, reverse it or change it, make it strange or quirky, suggest it back to them. Resist the impulse to be logical. This can generate new language in unexpected avenues. For instance, a segment from my peer, Randie Mayo’s draft, “Walking With Marzanna”:
Strange, now, how I could never
face the wind’s bite when Slovakia always ran
through my blood. I had never been to Slovakia,
its language lost to me, much like the language
of birds who stuff their faces beneath their wings
to hide from winter.
Randie’s language here is concise and interesting, moving through images of American-Slovakian traditions and heritages, the power of language and nature, and never gets “stuck” or fixed on a particular image. Yet, let’s change it a bit.
Strange how that Slovakian
bite runs through my blood like language,
never lost, never birded—fanning the snow
to patterns of [insert images]
Or…
How strange the hidings of a grouse—
its Slovak blood winging snow like language,
with a bite like loss or home.
Of course, we could generate many more examples. These two renditions reflect the same language, but emphasize different qualities. Do you (or Randie) as a poet wish to emphasize the snow, the language, the birds, Slovakia, etc? When your classmate is stuck, help them revise to generate more images.
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