This week brings with it quirky days like Words with Friends and Take Your Poet to Work Day. So I decided to use this opportunity to invite all of you, my blog-world-friends, to share some words with me, poetically.

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Poetic Sundays: Weaving Poetic Words With Friends

Collaborative poetry is a poetry technique where two or more persons come together to write a poem. We can do this in a myriad ways and I will list a few today below so you can work on them with groups if you choose to.

Plus, I also invite you to join in on a collaborative poem here today and I will post the same in next week’s poetic Sunday post (end of poetic Sundays section please)

The Many Ways to Weave Poetic Words with Friends: Collaborative Poetic Techniques

So many ways to create poetic words with friends! Here are a few …

Exquisite Corpse

I did not know that this fun group activity had such a morbid name though I have used this for classroom parties, group events, and more many times. But here is the gist of this technique:

On a sheet of paper, the first person writes a line – either at the very top (logical sense) or very bottom (for fun) – and passes it on to the second person in the group, who then uses the first line to continue the poem. However, before passing it on to the next person, they fold the paper to hide what the first person wrote so only their line is visible to the third person. The third person then does the same – writes a line inspired by the second person’s like, folds the paper so only their own line is visible to the next person; and so on.

This poetic technique works best for larger groups, like a classroom setting.

source: various including Wikipedia

Renga

The renga is a Japanese form which is considered the predecessor of the haiku. Here, two or more poets collaborate by taking turns writing the renga. Here are the basic guideline:

• One poet writes the first stanza – three lines for a total of seventeen syllables (5/7/5)
• The next poet then writes a couplet with seven syllables per line.
• The third and fourth stanzas (and so on) repeat the pattern of the first two stanzas. These can be written by one pair of poets or multiple poets taking turns. Like with the exquisite corpse, each poet takes inspiration from the stanza preceding their own.
• Also, while each five-line stanza should stand on its own, they should all have a common thread running through.
• It can be as long as the poets choose it to be!

source: Poets.org

Tapestry Poetry

This is a modern collaborative poetic technique developed by Avril Meallem, a poet living in Israel and Shernaz Wadia, a poet living in India. I first saw it on another poet’s blog via dVerse Poets Pub (Ben Alexander’s The Skeptic’s Kaddish)

The basic idea of this form is that each poet composes a poem based on a title chosen by one of them and without any discussion as to the theme of the poem. Once both poets have their poem, they exchange them and the second poet works to weave the two together into one poem that flows well. The poets can then work to edit the piece (while keeping most of the original words/lines intact) until both are happy with the final ‘tapestry.’

Here is how it goes:

1. The first poet writes a nine-line poem, and sends only the title of the poem to the second poet.
2. Now, the second poet writes another nine-line poem inspired by the title.
3. Both poets exchange and read each other’s poems.
4. The second poet weaves all the lines into one poem. Both poets then can edit the tapestry poem until happy.

notes to remember:

1. Only the person who gives the title can use the words within their poem (to avoid repetition)
2. The majority of words of the original poems should be kept though
   • grammatical changes. (e.g. singular to plural, verb tenses, etc.) are allowed
   • adjectives and adverbs can be replaced with others to help the flow as long as they retain the original tone and meaning of the poems.

source: various including The Skeptic’s Kaddish and Wikipedia

More Collaborative Techniques

Other techniques include

• Common prompt:
  • Give a group of people the same image, theme, or set of words, and have each person write a couple of lines or more.
  • You could predetermine certain rules they need to follow, or not.
  • Once all lines/stanzas/short poems have been written, then either the group can further collaborate to put all their lines together to create the final poem, or a moderator(s) can do so with either a predetermined plan or by seeing what they can come up with using all the lines.
  • Make sure that all lines/words are kept intact (as much as possible, with punctuation/some rearrangement within their lines allowed).
• Rewriting a common poem. (not really collaborative, but can be a collage of poems based on one single initial poem!)
  • Select a poem and have all poets rearrange the lines/words of the original to rewrite the poem in any way they choose.
  • Then create a collage!
• Of course, you can come up with your own collaborative techniques. And if you think of something, do let me know.
• Check out Spark to Flame if collaborative poetry interests you (I discovered it as a result of researching for this post)

source: various, including wikipedia

Our Collaboration: Weaving Words with All of You Friends

Using the concept of the common prompt poem, here is my proposal and request to all of you. I will give you a prompt to get you inspired/started and each of you can compose two to three lines inspired by the prompt.

Given this is my first attempt to try this out, I leave you free as to the form, rhythm, and rhyme of your poem. You can rhyme or not rhyme, follow a meter or not. The only requirement is that it have some connection to the provided prompt and not longer than three lines. No need to title it.

So here is the prompt:

Recently

On My Blog and Home-front

Last year, this week, I started this section with the words – “It has been a sweltering few days and the weather forecast shows more hot summer days too.” And it is true again this week. While the heat is going to reduce a bit and then back up again, it is still here for a bit. Hello summer, indeed!

I had many things I wanted to do in the garage but it was an oven and when it finally cooled down a bit yesterday – to the mid 80s – I got busy. Now I feel good having done long-overdue organizing and decluttering.

• Walking Down Hidden Alleys Leads to….
• Five Fun and Creative Ways to Reuse a Paper Bag
• 13 Beautiful Quotes on Simplicity from Books
• Weaving Wor(l)ds of Whimsy and Full of Wonder
• Books With Questions in Titles: One Great List for You!
• How To Be A Kid Again
• Sunday Scribblings #193: Many Reasons to Love Rock and Roll

Upcoming

On My Blog and Home-front

Hopefully will post everyday this week – on time! And catch up on interacting with other bloggers (all of you). Plus, some more organizing and cleaning up is in the near future for me at home.

This Week’s Celebrations

The Literary and Close-to-it Celebrations

• Literary Birthdays this week: Clive Cussler and Iris Murdoch on the 15th of July; Tony Kushner on 16th.; Erle Stanley Gardner on July 17th; Elizabeth Gilbert and William Makepeace Thackeray on the 18th; Alice Dunbar Nelson on 19th July; Alistair MacLeod and Cormac McCarthy on 20th; Ernest Hemingway, Sarah Waters, Tess Gallagher, and Michael Connelly on the 21st
• The 17th is World Emoji Day
• It is National Words with Friends Day and Take Your Poet to Work Day on the 19th of July.
• And reading Hemingway’s poems and stories for it is Hemingway Days 17th through the 21st of July.

Foodie Celebrations

Food, delicious, necessary, food!! Here are the many ways we can celebrate it this week:

• National Tapioca Pudding Day as well as National Gummi Worm Day are on July 15th.
• The 16th is Fresh Spinach Day, National Cherry Day, National Ice Cream Day, and  National Corn Fritters Day .
• Followed by National Peach Ice Cream Day on the 17th
• While July 18th is National Sour Candy Day
• and you can enjoy National Daiquiri Day on the 19th
• Then the 20th celebrates a childhood familiar favorite – it is National Lollipop Day. It is also National Fortune Cookie Day

Other Celebrations

• Let us Give Something Away for July 15th for it is National Give Something Away Day. The 15th also happens to be World Youth Skills Day and Celebration of the Horse Day. It is also Global Hug Your Kids Day.
• July 16th is World Snake Day and Artificial Intelligence Appreciation Day 
• The 17th is  World Day for International Justice
• Followed by World Listening Day on the 18th of July
• July 20th celebrates the outer space with National Moon Day and Space Exploration Day
• Toss Away the “Could Haves” and “Should Haves” Day  is celebrated on the third Saturday every July. What we need to do: let go of the things that have been burdening you and live in the now.
• The 20th is also World Jump Day 

Wrapping up my Sunday Scribblings

So dear reader, this was it for my Sunday Scribblings. I would love to hear your comments on my post(s), poetic Sunday section, and anything else. And which of these days do you plan to celebrate (or any other)? 

Linking this to the Sunday Post over at the Caffeinated Reviewer and the Sunday Salon.

Linking up to the Ultimate Blog Challenge