A Poetry Exercise: Dream Grammar

And a Poem

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A number of years ago, I tried an experiment in order to generate ideas and language for poems—I started writing all my sentences backward. I wanted to see if unexpected phrases would appear, thus generating other ideas (content) and grammars (form) that might turn into something I could use.

For example, I would take what I wrote above, “I started writing all of my sentences backward” and instead write, still left to write on the page, backward. The result in this instance being, “Backwards sentences my of all writing started I.”

Now, that definitely sounds weird, but what if we cut out a few words or reordered a little? For example, Backward sentences, all writing started “I.” Or maybe just, Backward, all writing started. I like this second option—what mysteries would follow such a sentence?

I found this practice interesting enough that I started using it as a lesson/method in my creative writing classes—the students have a pretty great (and sometimes frustrating) time trying to write backward for the first time! Still, they produced some truly fresh lines and poems that felt like a new kind of magic. I still do this now and then, often when I’m stuck or simply feel like playing, just to see.

Here is a poem of mine that came out of this process. The last line is probably the most visible example of a written sentence with the word order easily reversed, and I just loved the way it sounded. “Pictures take you.”

I hope you are all doing well.

Dream Grammar
       by Chuck Rybak

We time this
dream another      sleep another
blonde eyes green      another place from movement
steal the down walk      unrestrained beauty
ribs      heart      punching breath

in streets      smile a drive 
a nerve route from Rochester to Buffalo
beautiful longing bridges
everything Niagara
mist and buildings maid the tourists
swirl crushing      thinking raincoats
smile      wave      pose
pictures take you

Midjourney’s rendering of the phrase “Dream Grammar”