Spot Collaboration: Writing

Students were broken into groups of three and given a line of text, either from Frank O'Hara or Dietrich Bonhoeffer. (Yes.) The students then had to add three lines to that line to make some sort of poem-like thing. When finished, the groups had to switch poems with each other and perform three "actions" on the poem they now had before them. This could mean adding lines, striking words, changing syntax, etc. After finishing these actions, the groups switched poems again and then performed three actions on the newly modified poems. Then each group read the product they had in their possession. Below are the results.

~

Cars are as I AM--
waiting.

And even the traffic halts

So thick is existence.
The looming sound of the passing train disrupts my thoughts
As the sun peers around the sky scraper.
Time is raging on.

~

I don't play this game very well.
I've no sympathy with attempts.
Distress creates problems too big to be solved by pleasantries.
So instead, I won't explain away distress.

~

I hope you have a chance to see
the city again.
It is a shame--
it must be damn tranquil. So
I wish you back soon.
With my illness I am unable
to see you again.

~

Even the stabbings are causing the population explosion. I have been irreversibly wakened from slumber. I cannot fathom the beauty of my destruction, which is not destruction but a dream of blue turtles.

~

I take in
I can listen
But add nothing
I find nothing to say
In this place
Wind whistles
And that's it

~

And the park's full of dancers
with their tights and shoes
hanging from trees, darkened fruits.
The air holds lifeless birds.

The End