10 Comments

This is fabulous, Chuck. The poem and the exercise both. (both exercise the and poem.)

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Thanks, Vive! Hope you are doing well. I've been working with Odyssey Beyond Bars here, which springs out of the Clemente courses, so you're visit here really helped me get involved in something new and meaningful.

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I didn't respond to this earlier, Chuck, but I'm really delighted that you're working with Odyssey Beyond Bars. That just makes me happy. I'm a fan of all things Odyssey and all things Emily Auerbach. And, of course, all things C & R.

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I recall Borges's celebrated metaphysicians of Tlon, who held ''that while we sleep here, we are awake elsewhere and that in this way every man is two men.''

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I love this quote so much (which is new to me, so thank you).

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This is so great. Thank you, Chuck.

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I have always adored Natasha Trethewey's Myth: https://peelsofpoetry.tumblr.com/post/36176075824/myth-by-natasha-trethewey-i-was-asleep-while-you

But, have always found it nearly impossible to recreate a similar style.

Thanks to this, I may have just cracked the code to my wonky brain.

Thanks.

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What a cool poem that is? I forget the name for that form, unless it's just called a Palindrome. Thanks for posting the link to that--I love Trethewey's work.

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I agree with all your commentators: a fantastic method for poetry generation. One question: any rules or suggestions on the writing of the original "forward" sentences? How do those come about? Or from where? Previously written stuff? Deliberately "literary"? Or is artifice avoided forward and discovered backward?

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I love "Dream Grammar" and the writing backwards exercise! I'm going to try it tonight and see what happens. I always love finding new ways to uncover poems hiding in plain sight.

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