Poets Online Archive - Automatic Writing

Poets Online Archive
Automatic Writing

They say: Sometimes the messages come in foreign languages. Often the person does not recognize their own handwriting. Often spaces are not made between words, there is no punctuation, a picture or symbol is part of the writing.

The model we used was Andre Breton's poem Always for the First Time.

For us: Get into a comfortable position - today you will be seated at your computer. Be sure you are free of distractions. If you are tired --this could actually work better for you.
Open the web page that contains our random line generator
You may open a word processor program window simultaneously if you prefer to type, or simply put writing paper beside your keyboard.
Generate a line. Copy that line and begin writing whatever comes to mind.
Keep your own lines at about the same length as the line generated.

Any time you are at a loss for the next thing to write, generate a new line and begin again.
You should continue for at least 15 minutes. You will want to generate many more words than you will ultimately use in your poem. If you are working on the computer, save and/or print your lines.

Then take a break from poetry. Do something else for a while. When you return to your lines, read through them and look for any common themes that seem to emerge. Circle any words that seem to be part of those themes.

Next is the process of selecting phrases or entire lines that appeal to you. Perhaps, a poem began to emerge in the writing - perhaps, it still needs to be found. You should try NOT to add very much to the words you wrote. Look for the sense in your writing rather than applying sense over the lines.

THE MEN OF OUR IMAGINATION

The men of our imagination speak in the moonless night,
Their words unfit for public speaking,
Curling at their feet and growling
Slipping silently along the moistened ground

Decrepit they are in their features
Stone noses and calloused ears
Their eyes trip about, to and fro
Scanning each other, themselves, others, you, me

They cannot speak kindly; their words are only those of war
Quick sons of Mars, fecund friends to blood
They ache for visceral pleasures
For the steam of raw and tender flesh

Their hearts exposed; they beat relentlessly
Their breath is quick and redolent with meat
They know and relish primitive desires
Desires other men fear, cautious for their selves

Their whispers gurgle slick, both common and exotic
Their words sharp projectiles, slung like mean tacks
Their demeanors stolid, faces set, determined
Yet, their spirits are delirious, ripe with relish for their strength

We know the moon is not hidden by clouds
The moon all-knowing has fled for tamer quarters
Leaving the footprints of these men to be discovered
Only by future alien tribes who come and wonder

Robert Stribley

Memories of words escape under a cover of new snow

Blankets keep us from the cold always creeping in
seeping into the cracks in our bones
relegating us to icy bone stacks.
Your words are blanketed and warm always creeping in
where I need salvation and firelight.
Snow covers the ground where my thoughts lie
under mounds of white stuff ready to be shoveled.
I realize that you stand with your shovel in hand
ready to discard the excess of my thoughts and
leave them piled at the roadside to melt and drain
into cavernous spaces that end up God knows where.
Blankets keep us warm sealing the cracks where
the cold is always creeping in and our thoughts are
relegated to the icy bone stacks of our fears.

The memories of our imagination echo in the water,
draining away from the piles at street level where
the best and brightest of our ideas are sacrificed
at the hands of loved ones with shovels and approval.
I remain under my blanket in a white quiet
soon to be discarded and disregarded for trespassing.
Yet under your warm blanket rests the safe harbor
where the water of my memory will find its way back
to pool and evaporate and fall softly as newly fallen snow.

Karen Kimbell

ANGELS

The angels lie unvoiced
on earth but not in heavens
songs. They fly through the
suns path of gold into the
coming nights twilight.

Becky Erb

RESOLUTION

the leaves of tears turn
unafraid
coffee and weather-stripping
keep this cold january morning
at bay

i search for a change of scenery but
there is only
the white of Zen
dotted with nothing

it leaks into my being
floods my soul with endless leaves of tears
unafraid

this barren soul of mine
yearns to ache
feel their sadness

some say i should try harder
focus on one thing at a time
give up red meat and cigarettes
practice fen shui
hang the windchimes nearer the door

kill not the little spiders crawling over my rotting bones
some say drink more water
stop the caffeine

tighten the screws of my soul

i say

no

Marie a. Mennuto-Rovello

SHADES OF WORDS

The old ones of longing speak after the first death.
Does the age of a person determine his longing
or does he become old at the first death in his life
or the pattern of longing turn him into an old one
no matter his age at the time? Was death a cause
or effect of old age or merely a part of his pattern
of longing, and how he was affected by the second
or third, aging him further; or dulling his sense of
longing, speaking less shrill, with less meaning ?

The old ones of birth breathe sensuously, because they
have reasons for rejoicing alone in the twilight of life;
or perhaps because the chorus has left them to the finale
which they deserve to finish alone because of the years
these poets of evening shared in framing their words
and having used time to learn how life strains all poesy
through pain’s passion that has danced in their bones.
They’ve shared, from every dawn through each nighttime,

the dreams that not many dancers have known. As children
of not many words, they ‘ve chanted a few to the surface
from years-ago poetry-ghosts, born in shadowy worlds
where the ancients sang out their words of poetic wisdom.

Shapes of words often speak like dancers on the stage,
even while children dreaming of when, as Poets of Evening,
they, too, will rejoice like the old ones, with songs of age
that will sound their first joyous dance on this earthly stage
while original Poets of evening, in the wings off-stage, beckon -
as only the old ones can do while awaiting their once-again death .

Catherine M. LeGault

AUTOMATIC

Your oldest friends
of winter
breathe unseen
by anyone but you.
You meet them in the night
under the moon
where snowflakes long
to be caught on a tongue,

your tongue can taste like safety
or goodbye, your breath
is smoky heat in the night.
It's automatic
how we both reach for each other

in the morning
the sun so bright behind the curtain
that the sleepless bed looks fresh
and inviting beyond this moment
a wordless turn down,

cold sheets, like snow, breath
is steam, sweet snowflakes,
unseen, enough to make it
to another night.
I'll meet you there - the window
just below the moon.

Pamela Milne