This experiment is a variation on the traditional exquisite corpse. If it doesn’t suit it, make up your own variation. That’s how new literature gets generated!

 

Step 1

Get together a group of three or more participants. Each of you will write down a sentence on your own piece of paper and pass it to the next person.

 

Step 2

Read the sentence you have received and write down the opposite of each word on the line below it. Consider: Does every word have an opposite? And when you write these opposites, can you construct a sentence that still makes grammatical sense?

For example:

We asked them to drive us to the airport.

What is the opposite of an airport? Does “the” have a true opposite? Maybe something like this emerges:

They forced me to walk away from a train station.

Or, something more quizzical results:

          You held us inside a period of the underground.

Once you have written down your opposite sentence, fold over the previous one so that only yours is visible, and pass to the next person. Continue this cycle until the page is full.

 

Step 3

The subjectivity of the way your group perceives the “opposites” of certain words means your exquisite corpse will quickly take a turn toward the unexpected.

One of our examples continues:

We asked them to drive us to the airport.

          You commanded me to walk away from my house.

          I begged you to run with me to the grave.

In this fashion, an exquisite corpse that begins with a simple sentiment can end with something profound…or something totally banal or comic! Find what intuitively attracts you and begin making a poem(s). Or, as is so often the case with experimenting, take a text produced here and work it into one of your existing poem drafts.