Monday, September 08, 2008

Scientify a Poem

So in my Creative Writing class, we have to make a formula for a poem. Something that will generate a poem without thought, but will create it differently for each person.

Here's my formula:

Andrea Wilhelm

How to make a poem scientific and yet random.

Materials:

Random number of random flowers. Favorite Book. Check Book.

For this example, I will use the random number of random flowers I collected to help figure out the scientific way to create this poem.

1.Separate the flowers into different kinds. Count how many different kinds of flowers you have.
I had 3 different kinds of flowers (daisies, roses, and some other pink kind of flower).
Make this your stanza count.
2.At random, pick one kind of flower to be your first stanza. I'll pick roses. Count how many of these flowers you have. I have 4 roses.
Make this your line count.
3.At random, pick which flower out of this count you want to make your first line. Count how many pedals the flower has. The first rose has 7 pedals.
Make this your word count.
4.Repeat step 3 for every other flower in that genre of flowers.
5.Repeat steps 2-4 for every other kind of flower you have.

This is the set up I have after counting my flowers, pedals, etc.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _

Each dash stanza for a word in that particular line.

6.Now grab your favorite book and your check book. Open your check book to the most recent page. Take the amount of money you spent and open your book to that page number, ignoring the cents. (ex. 3.89 would be page 3) Then go to the date. The day is the line number and the month is the word number (9/06 would be line 9 6th word in.) Go back one line and do the same. Continue doing this until every spot has a word in your poem.
7.Fix the words in the line to make grammatical sense.


I just finished doing the sixth step to my poem, and it sounds funy, so once I fix the grammatical words so that it makes a sentence, I'll post it. If you have any spare time, grab a couple flowers and post your poem on my comments!

2 comments:

Tim Parenti said...

I remember doing formulaic poems once. They always turn out so weird! Definitely do post yours here when you're finished!

Anonymous said...

Um, so...this is Mich Elliott, stalking you over the break, yay!

I didn't want to mess with flowers, so I used your word/stanza count (line two had 'read' and 'able,' which
I morphed into 'readable').

I design parents that, during grades, wrinkle.
The workshops passing half-pages, if readable.
In a hand, gripping the Have,
Watch the violin dinner cafeteria back suddenly
Beneath the rising sun, an obsession, all frenzy, and her fall there.
Would I end God, being Lora, until beds had? Out window, I matter with us. Of
Perfectly traumatic periscope and I,
Assumptions were clogged, that!