The Exquisite Corpse

fun for everyone

Published on August 27, 2004 By citahellion In Entertainment

A while back I posted a few poems. (See "Deaf Trees and Bladders", "Zoroaster's Filibusters", and "Watch me now".) These poems are credited to The Exquisite Corpse, which is not a person, but a process. What I did was, on the dial-up BBS that I used to run, I set up a mailbox. The users would send in a line of random poetic-sounding stuff. Every once in a while I would open the mail, collect the lines into stanzas, make up a title, and post the resulting poem for all to see and marvel at. It was a very interesting and fun experiment, with a lot of very amusing, if unintentional, juxtapositions.

Since I have (I hope!) enough presence on JU now to get a little notice, I thought it would be very cool to resurrect The Exquisite Corpse (if you'll pardon the pun). So I created a new mail account: exquisitecorpse04@yahoo.com. Make up a line that sounds poetic, or crib it from your favorite song or author, I don't really care. Just get a line and send it in.

If this takes off, I'd ask people not to send in more than either 1 line per article they post or 1 line per day, whichever is more. It's always sad when you realize that two of your lines are right next to each other; half the fun is seeing how your line fits with whatever someone else sent in.

Just to give you another little sample, here's one more poem from the old Exquisite Corpse:

Two Apples And A Hammer

The unfunded mandate's left a lingering oppression
Ooo, that's harsh.
a hundred and sixty-one thousand WHAT?
Confusion IS my epitaph

Sun on shoulder, eyes that smoulder
Steve? Yes. Steve? Yes. Steve? Yes.
A martini built for two
Weird sex! Obsession! Comic books!

The waters a bit sharky, but other than that.
Randy young bottoms all tied up with string
The fantods of the evening bilked the slippper! Mirabu rudesby!
I flailed about aimlessly for over an hour.
Wynona's got a big purple beaver.

And his last thought before the rotating steel blades hit him was:
Butter and bread, cheese on my head
Then crunchy bagels flew through her head
You guys are real dickheads sometimes.

I wandered lonely as a cumulonimbus
Sorry, that's confidential information.
The answer of course is...
You look, sometimes, and sometimes you see

Comments

BlueDev

on Aug 27, 2004

Sounds like a fun little experiment citahellion. I will give it a go after I think of something.

citahellion

on Aug 28, 2004

[nudge]

LadyCleve

on Aug 28, 2004

Can't wait to see the first JU compilation

citahellion

on Aug 28, 2004

I'm very interested to see how it comes out too. This was one of my favorite things on my own BBS.

Don't wait until you think of something, just start a message and fill it with gibberish if that's all you can come up with.

citahellion

on Aug 29, 2004

(jostle)

citahellion

on Aug 31, 2004

Okay, it's been 4 days so far, and I've got ONE e-mail, and that's from me, so it doesn't really count. Come on, people! I promise I won't sell your e-mail address to any spammers....

Texas Wahine

on Aug 31, 2004

It's very cool, but I suck and have nothing to offer . . .

citahellion

on Aug 31, 2004

TW, that is not true at all! It doesn't have to be an instant classic line out of your award-winning epic in iambic trochameter, it can be anything at all. Send in a line from a Lewis Carroll poem if you happen to know one, or a line from your favorite song, or a random sentence from off the top of your head. Even "I suck and have nothing to offer" would be a valuable contribution if you send it to exquisitecorpse04@yahoo.com!

citahellion

on Sep 10, 2004

I'm giving this a bump because I want more people to send in lines. Or even for the same people who've sent me some to send in another one.

I'll post a new poem on Monday, regardless.

C'mon, you can do it!

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