Wordplay and the Artist's Way

I was thinking yesterday about how people decide what they want to do with their lives.  I always say that if I could do anything I want to do, I would make art and write.  I consider whether both of these are forms of escapism, but I don’t think so.  I just have this extreme appreciation for creativity.  When I write, and strangely enough, even more when I make art, I am thrilled by the idea that I am doing something that no one has ever done before.  Now of course, I know that others have written—but not exactly what I have written.  And sometimes it freaks me out to think that I may be the only human on the planet who compulsively sticks dots to her paintings!  Admittedly I don’t always do this.  For example, I am currently working on a series of retro fashion pieces that are made of strips of paper cut from magazines and books.  And I know I am not the only artist who has used this technique.  I would like to think I am using it differently though.  We'll see.  I am about to finish my second piece in the series and I have ideas for a dozen more.

As I was working today, I realized how gluing strips of text onto my panel is very similar to playing with a random sentence generator.  If you have never experimented one of these, there are lots of them online.  Even better is a site titled, “Language is a Virus.” 

http://www.languageisavirus.com/

Just scroll down under “Writing Games” and you will find a wealth of wordplay and inspiration.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that having a computer program generate a poem is a shortcut for doing it yourself.  But it can definitely inspire a blocked writer by supplying a surprising combination of words or thoughts.  The "poem engine" is pretty cool. And so is the "cut up machine."  Then when you get bored with wordplay, check out the writing prompts.  The last time I played here, I clicked on the button and received the following prompt:  "Write household poems about cooking, shopping, eating and sleeping."  I ended up writing the poem below.

AROUND THE MOUNTAIN AT THE END OF A SLEEP

you seem to think

you are as beautiful

as the sun

filtering

slanted through the trees

that you

distract me

like those beams

and drive me

headlong without regard

into traffic coming on

last Saturday

I cleaned the kitchen drawers

spent the drizzly morning

bent on trying to remember

into which clattery pullout

I had stashed my dreams

if I seem to be

invulnerable, you

are sorely misinformed

**************

Not a great poem, perhaps, but good enough to get published in The Sigurd Journal a couple of years ago.  I especially liked this journal because they published an interview with each writer, including questions about the published piece and the writing process.  Unfortunately, like so many printed literary journals, this one is now defunct.

And one last recommendation:  The Artist's Way Every Day: A Year of Creative Living by Julia Cameron.