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Hi, here’s Björn, many autumn greetings to your all. I have just started a course in creative writing, and for the first week we had an assignment to write a poem with no meaning at all, actually avoiding all sense of meaning, still using all kind of poetic devices we have learned. As inspiration we got a piece from “Tender Buttons” by Gertrude Stein. Of course I have never studied English literature, so I only knew Gertrude Stein from her life with Alice B Toklas and how she inspired many famous artists in the early 20th century. At first when reading her pieces I couldn’t make anything of it. The book contains 3 parts: OBJECTS, FOOD and ROOMS, and the first piece from OBJECTS is probably the most famous:
A CARAFE, THAT IS A BLIND GLASS.
A kind in glass and a cousin, a spectacle and nothing strange a single hurt color and an arrangement in a system to pointing. All this and not ordinary, not unordered in not resembling. The difference is spreading.

The Glass ( The Fruit Bowl) by Juan Gris
Maybe it’s most famous because many readers don’t make it past that first piece. *smiles*. But we can note how Gertrude Stein breaks down concept of meaning and grammar, to sound and pieces that somehow is related to the mundane object she is writing about. The focus is on the sounds and the poetic devices — still it’s very related to object. A friend at the course, Sandra Jabre, had taken the effort of going back and reading how Gertrude Stein really wrote her poem. Sandra sent in the following piece:
In a bind
In a slip drip of sulfur yellow
antonyms climb a story mellow.
Interestingly, the farrow lay a pond
unbeknownst to the purple sparrow.
Why then, would cardboard swallow
wrinkled static
dressing sensuous dark?
In an angsty breeze the chick-a-dee decided on two-ply for its needs.
© Sandra Jabre
So today I would like you to release that flow of word without restraint to grammar or meaning. In a way it’s the same thing a cubist painter would do, break it apart and present it again. Maybe repeating the same image/word for effect. Use pleasing colors/sounds and all tools you know – but really try to avoid all sense and meaning, and just like the beauty of a cubist painting appears after looking at it for a long time (or squinting your eyes), I’m sure we can create wonders here tonight. Any or no form at all is good.
Come join the fun and write your own poem, and when you are ready link up with us.
- Enter a link directly to your poem and your name by clicking Mr Linky below
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Hi there, and a happy Thursday. I hope you find today’s promo fun and challenging. I just came from a concert .. But I will try to tend the bar on the subway.
Hi, Björn! I realized last night, as I was writing my poem, that has little or no meaning was a hard thing to do for me. Great and challenging prompt though.
It’s very hard to write without meaning.. And to write without grammar is even harder
I have no doubt. I did not even attempt that.
Or is it the easiest thing in the world?
If you put a dictionary through the blender (as someone commented that Gertrude Stein’s writing was) . but to do it deliberately I find very hard…
Shawna! I need a new address!!!!!! leave me some breadcrumbs!!!!
I have like 15 blogs, and you can’t find me anywhere? 😉
everytime i find one the door closes after a week or so…just saying…ha
ha. I use creative grammar already….smiles.
To use a verb instead of noun for instance 🙂
like welsh — butterflying a paper napkin!
Indeed 🙂
She napkins the butter,
smothers her flutter,
and trip-tip-toe
slips-a-way ((((((from last night’s drip-drop druthers))))))
into a mid-
morning,
minus-cule,
table-top
nap.
minus-cule
love it.
Hi Bjorn, an interesting prompt..posted mine and see you all tomorrow..off to bed now 🙂
Good night.. see you tomorrow 🙂
I like the challenge and will probably write another, one with less meaning and more broken than the one I posted…instead, mine is more a stream of thought, so not exactly what you are looking for 😉
Ah. The challenge is meant as an inspiration.. but I look forward for a second one… I might even write a second one myself
Hi Bjorn, quite a challenging prompt indeed. I enjoyed trying to ‘think outside of the box’ with your poem. I have a few things going on for the next few hours but will manage to visit others as I am able….looking forward to visiting some cubistic wonders. Smiles.
I think this will be fun.. to stretch yourself towards only sounds might be good for other things we write.
nice…this was harder than I thought it would be…I want to inject meaning, tell a story…I still tied it in pretty tight so I could probably try another a bit more abstract…but fun to stretch the muscles a bit…
I found it very hard at first.. but I used some destructive editing with sounds..
cheese grater pumpkin fluff
an adverb chipmunk soufflé
a-ruff a-ruff
sand
paper
wood plane, silk membrane
in the mindframe
of
what?
(enter the trump
ets)
announcement: grammar
has left the building
kaput
Brian I love this. It has a glimmer of coherence, which, with the humour, suits me down to the ground.
Try a word list. Just mash ’em all up into garbage that some people will see as art. Like me, for example. 😛
alright
bells rung
kids gone
time to go
home
catch up
in a bit
Well.. i spent most of the day writing Epic Poetry at 2400 words so far..still not finished in my latest effort.. and yes it’s almost a total opposite from this prompt.. but this truly is the way i awakened my creativity by embracing the abstract in life, fully whether other people understood my meanings or not…
I was truly a robot before… and i sought away out of it.. and yes this freeing method of creativity was one of my big tickets back in to humanity… which is much greater reward.. that any number of Facebook likes or books published… smiles…
But anyway i do like to embrace the borders of non-sensical..so i do hope to be back.. sometime in the next few days to read and comment.. as that truly is what increases my skills at everything in life.. watching.. learning.. and practicing the art of life.. always now..:) Smilesx3 Bjorn.. and thanks for this lovely reading and commenting opportunity that does come here..:)from your prompt..now..:)2
Ah.. sometimes it all sound.. and no meaning.. sometimes just meaning.. and no sound.
So true..it is..;)
Bjorn, I know my poetry would be improved by more freedom and less meaning, but (no offence) I’m too old and shut-minded to change the habits of a lifetime. However…I will think about it and try a freewrite in the morning.
Ah.. yes I can fully understand.. but it was fun to write..
I did a second one before heading to bed.. no obligation to read.
Bjorn, just yesterday I had a conversation in which my friend and I agreed we disliked poetry when the meaning seemed nonexistent or so obscure that we don’t understand it. As life would have it, your prompt challenges us to do just that. Ha. Don’t know if I’ll get to write something, but your prompt has taught me something and given me some food for thought. Thanks.
Well, well — I thoroughly dislike this kind of poetry as a rule, but it was great fun to do. I suspect I’d enjoy it even more in free verse, but was also writing to another prompt which asked for metre. (And metre is a poetic device, lol.)
PS Gotta head out for some hours; will have a good read later. 🙂
Lovely jubbly prompt dear Bjorn! Back in the fold forever (I hope) – but sadly only due to the decline of my handsome one. That said, need something to keep me sane. Much thanks to you.
Anna :o]
hey anna,
sorry to hear about your handsome one…and i hope that it gets better….
need anything, let me know.
hey good morning… was at a friend’s birthday party last night and was late when i returned – will be catching up now…
hey you. was wondering where you were…
so you had fun at the party?
Ahh. Now soon to head of to work. Will come by a little through the day.. Love your creativity so far.
hi all , nice to be back after a hectic days of festival..here in south India we had a ten day festival..it was nice to connect with all the friends and family..but missed blogging a lot:(..Bjorn what a prompt !! loved it ..hope my small attempt meets the bar!!
have a good day..
Hi… Hello 🙂 by default i added my direct address of my blog instead of poetry entry, sorry for that 😛 but i changed after there in….
I will correct for you – just paste the link in the comment section
Thank you… here it is… http://jeyanthi-jawahar.blogspot.in/2014/10/fell-asleep.html
I am not sure I achieved the goal but it was fun trying.
I liked it 🙂
I am way behind in everything, Bjorn–returning comments for the last, but will think on this! thanks. k.
Just do it if it’s fun.. (but it is).
I think it will be. I’ve been busy this week and will be so today–a weekday–but tomorrow! k.
I tried, honest!
Piffle
White wine
inhibitions gone
free from grammatical constraints
impossible to step outside my normal self
meaning is all-important
Write rubbish?
Balderdash.
Ah.. yes it could be balderdash.. it’s hard to say.. I have read the entries and many of them contain clever little riddles that are just like those cubist paintings… you see it after a while..
Love it. 🙂
Isn’t this fun? Just when we thought that we would have to repost, revisit prompts of the past (which is never bad, like rewriting old poetics), Bjorn comes up Cubist, which certainly is preferable to Syrianist or Koreanist at this point, right? Like Anna, I did have several scenarios fluttering simultaneously in my head as I wrote my cubist gem, & several of you, Brian & Kathy at the forefront, connected the missing dots, the half-thoughts, the utterances & observances. Kudos to you, brother, for finding fun midst the chaos of the day(s), & infusing or MTB with smiles; some plied from grimaces.
Ideas for poetry never run out.. that’s what make it fun.
Rudberg Ruins
In Sweden
we swear bare ass dare
because India is too behemoth
to fully comprehend, because
when Holly becomes Bolly every Dolly
bitch will have her day
braless buttless speechless toeless
& hopefully snowless;
soda pop bubbles need to be chilled
they said & jalapeno jelly usurps lavender honey
in every breezy hornet’s nest
when Nash became Hudson
before I could drive.
Great fun!
Ha.. Next time I will give you a sestina if you don’t watch your tongue 🙂
“jalapeno jelly usurps lavender honey” … Awesome.
Cool post. I learned something new and it pushed me to write a different way. Thanks!
Stopping by super late, working long hours this week and just happened to see this on my FB newsfeed. Still have to work tomorrow too, but I promise to come by and read and comment on these over the weekend. This looked like too much fun not to give it a try!
So glad you could make it Ginny, enjoyed your poem a lot.
Thanks Bjorn, appreciated your kind comment too. Still popping in and out to read and comment. Hit some more this morning. Now off to work, back again later. How fun (and freeing) it was to create something new, different, out of the ordinary. Really enjoyed each one that I’ve read so far!
Sorry to be so late. Such an intriguing prompt, but I couldn’t wrap my head around a subject & probably overthought it. Great fun, however. Thanks, Bjorn.
A great response, glad you could make it 🙂