For the first few weeks of quarantine, I will be writing poems using various writing experiments that you can try at home. For instance, I’ll rip up a science book and try to write a poem from the fragments, I’ll speak and write only in questions for a day, I’ll write a “mirror” poem to an existing one, experiment with every existing form, and so on!
At Heaven’s Gates (for Dad)
It was my dad’s birthday a couple of days ago. We bought him this beautiful painting by Nikola Pijamanov. I wrote a poem that Pijamanov inscribed one the back of it. You can read the poem here, written while pondering this stunning piece of artwork, reading “Paradise Lost”, and reflecting on hope.
Experiment 2: Ripping up a Textbook
In today’s poetry experiment, I will be ripping up a page from an Economics textbook, and attempting to write a poem about childhood from the fragments.
Experiment 1: Write a poem that reflects another poem, as in a mirror.
Day 1 in quarantine; we’re playing around with Bernadette Mayer’s “Failures in Infinitives” and writing a mirror poem.