82 Writing Experiments by Bernadette Mayer http://www.languageisavirus.com/articles/articles.php?subaction=sho...

You, Love and 2012 ? Tell me your birthdate and I will help you to see your love future. apps.facebook.com/sara
Why Are We in Iraq? Modern War and Political Poetry. Updated weekly. Submissions sought. www.whyareweiniraq.com
Crossing Borders: Essays Best Books of 2011 by The Hispanic Reader: "Engrossing and revealing." www.SergioTron
Writing Games Poetry Generators Post Your Writing Creative Writing Experiments Character Names Twitter Buttons

C
O
N
T
A
C
T

1 of 9 22/05/2012 06:35 p.m.

82 Writing Experiments by Bernadette Mayer http://www.languageisavirus.com/articles/articles.php?subaction=sho...

30

LanguageIsAVirus.com
How-To's
Torque & Press one System www.promessinc.com
1001 Character Quirks For Writing Fiction
Extend, Retract, and Rotate Measure Torque, Force,
Create Unforgettable Characters For Your
& Position
Fiction
Writing F A S T
The Easy Way To Write C
Teaching Reading www.Teacher.Scholastic.com/Read180 Toolbox for Writers O
Go To Scholastic's Read 180 For A Proven Reading Unleashing The Creative Child Within You N
Intervention Program Write Riveting Prose
T
Novel Writing A
Write a Novel in 60 Days! C
This Wicked Patch of Dust www.SergioTroncoso.com 10 Steps to Your First Draft
*Starred Review from Kirkus: "An engaging literary T
Finish Your Novel
achievement." Novel Writing Made Easy
Write Your First Book
Writing A Novel Is Easy! Writing A Great
Novel Is Hard
82 Writing Experiments by Secrets of Self-editing
Bernadette Mayer

Learn more about Bernadette Mayer ...

1. Pick a word or phrase at random, let mind play

freely around it until a few ideas have come up, then
seize on one and begin to write. Try this with a
non-connotative word, like "so" etc.

2. Systematically eliminate the use of certain kinds of

words or phrases from a piece of writing: eliminate all
adjectives from a poem of your own, or take out all
words beginning with 's' in Shakespeare's sonnets.

3. Systematically derange the language: write a work

consisting only of prepositional phrases, or, add a
gerund to every line of an already existing work.

4. Get a group of words, either randomly selected or

thought up, then form these words (only) into a piece
of writing-whatever the words allow. Let them demand
their own form, or, use some words in a predetermined
way. Design words.

5. Eliminate material systematically from a piece of

your own writing until it is "ultimately" reduced, or,
read or write it backwards, line by line or word by
word. Read a novel backwards.

6. Using phrases relating to one subject or idea, write

about another, pushing metaphor and simile as far as
you can. For example, use science terms to write about
childhood or philosophic language to describe a shirt.

7. Take an idea, anything that interests you, or an

object, then spend a few days looking and noticing,
perhaps making notes on what comes up about that
idea, or, try to create a situation or surrounding where
everything that happens is in relation.

8. Write as you think, as close as you can come to this,

that is, put pen to paper and don't stop. Experiment
writing fast and writing slow.

9. Attempt tape recorder work, that is, recording

without a text, perhaps at specific times.

2 of 9 22/05/2012 06:35 p.m.

82 Writing Experiments by Bernadette Mayer http://www.languageisavirus.com/articles/articles.php?subaction=sho...

10. Make notes on what happens or occurs to you for a

limited amount of time, then make something of it in
writing.

11. Get someone to write for you, pretending they are

you.

12. Write in a strict form, or, transform prose into a

poetic form. C
O
N
T
13. Write a poem that reflects another poem, as in a
mirror. A
C
14. Read or write a story or myth, then put it aside T
and, trying to remember it, write it five or ten times at
intervals from memory. Or, make a work out of
continuously saying, in a column or list, one sentence
or line, over and over in different ways, until you get it
"right."

15. Make a pattern of repetitions.

16. Take an already written work of your own and

insert, at random or by choice, a paragraph or section
from, for example, a psychology book or a seed
catalogue. Then study the possibilities of rearranging
this work or rewriting the "source."

17. Experiment with writing in every person and tense

every day.

18. Explore the possibilities of lists, puzzles, riddles,

dictionaries, almanacs, etc. Consult the thesaurus
where categories for the word "word" include: word as
news, word as message, word as information, word as
story, word as order or command, word as vocalable,
word as instruction, promise, vow, contract.

19. Write what cannot be written; for example,

compose an index.

20. The possibilities of synesthesia in relation to

language and words: the word and the letter as
sensations, colors evoked by letters, sensations caused
by the sound of a word as apart from its meaning, etc.
And the effect of this phenomenon on you; for
example, write in the water, on a moving vehicle.

21. Attempt writing in a state of mind that seems least

congenial.

22. Consider word and letter as forms-the concretistic

distortion of a text, a multiplicity of o's or ea's, or a
pleasing visual arrangement: "the mill pond of chill
doubt."

23. Do experiments with sensory memory: record all

sense images that remain from breakfast, study which
senses engage you, escape you.

24. Write, taking off from visual projections, whether

mental or mechanical, without thought to the word in
the ordinary sense, no craft.

25. Make writing experiments over a long period of

time. For example, plan how much you will write for a
particular work each day, perhaps one word or one

3 of 9 22/05/2012 06:35 p.m.

82 Writing Experiments by Bernadette Mayer http://www.languageisavirus.com/articles/articles.php?subaction=sho...

page.

26. Write on a piece of paper where something is

already printed or written.

27. Attempt to eliminate all connotation from a piece of

writing and vice versa.

28. Experiment with writing in a group, collaborative

work: a group writing individually off of each other's C
work over a long period of time in the same room; a O
group contributing to the same work, sentence by N
sentence or line by line; one writer being fed
T
information and ideas while the other writes; writing,
leaving instructions for another writer to fill in what A
you can't describe; compiling a book or work structured C
by your own language around the writings of others; or T
a group working and writing off of each other's dream
writing.

29. Dream work: record dreams daily, experiment with

translation or transcription of dream thought, attempt
to approach the tense and incongruity appropriate to
the dream, work with the dream until a poem or song
emerges from it, use the dream as an alert form of the
mind's activity or consciousness, consider the dream a
problem-solving device, change dream characters into
fictional characters, accept dream's language as a gift.

30. Structure a poem or prose writing according to city

streets, miles, walks, drives. For example: Take a
fourteen-block walk, writing one line per block to
create a sonnet; choose a city street familiar to you,
walk it, make notes and use them to create a work;
take a long walk with a group of writers, observe,
make notes and create works, then compare them;
take a long walk or drive-write one line or sentence
per mile. Variations on this.

31. The uses of journals. Keep a journal that is

restricted to one set of ideas, for instance, a food or
dream journal, a journal that is only written in when it
is raining, a journal of ideas about writing, a weather
journal. Remember that journals do not have to
involve "good" writing-they are to be made use of.
Simple one-line entries like "No snow today" can be
inspiring later. Have 3 or 4 journals going at once, each
with a different purpose. Create a journal that is meant
to be shared and commented on by another
writer--leave half of each page blank for the comments
of the other.

32. Type out a Shakespeare sonnet or other poem you

would like to learn about/imitate double-spaced on a
page. Rewrite it in between the lines.

33. Find the poems you think are the worst poems ever
written, either by your own self or other poets. Study
them, then write a bad poem.

34. Choose a subject you would like to write "about."

Then attempt to write a piece that absolutely avoids
any relationship to that subject. Get someone to grade
you.

35. Write a series of titles for as yet unwritten poems

or proses.

36. Work with a number of objects, moving them

around on a field or surface-describe their shifting

4 of 9 22/05/2012 06:35 p.m.

82 Writing Experiments by Bernadette Mayer http://www.languageisavirus.com/articles/articles.php?subaction=sho...

relationships, resonance's, associations. Or, write a

series of poems that have only to do with what you see
in the place where you most often write. Or, write a
poem in each room of your house or apartment.
Experiment with doing this in the home you grew up
in, if possible.

37. Write a bestiary (a poem about real and mythical

animals).
C
38. Write five short expressions of the most adamant O
anger; make a work out of them. N
T
39. Write a work gazing into a mirror without using the
pronoun I. A
C
40. A shocking experiment: Rip pages out of books at T
random (I guess you could xerox them) and study
them as if they were a collection of poetic/literary
material. Use this method on your old high school or
college notebooks, if possible, then create an
epistemological work based on the randomly chosen
notebook pages.

41. Meditate on a word, sound or list of ideas before

beginning to write.

42. Take a book of poetry you love and make a list,

going through it poem by poem, of the experiments,
innovations, methods, intentions, etc. involved in the
creation of the works in the book.

43. Write what is secret. Then write what is shared.

Experiment with writing each in two different ways:
veiled language, direct language.

44. Write a soothing novel in twelve short paragraphs.

45. Write a work that attempts to include the names of

all the physical contents of the terrestrial world that
you know.
46. Take a piece of prose writing and turn it into poetic
lines. Then, without remembering that you were
planning to do this, make a poem of the first and last
words of each line to see what happens. For instance,
the lines (from Einstein) "When at the reception/Of
sense-impressions, memory pictures/Emerge this is not
yet thinking/And when. . ./Would become:/When
reception/Of pictures/Emerge thinking/And when..."
And so on. Form the original prose, poetic lines, and
first-and-last word poem into three columns on a page.
Study their relationships.

47. If you have an answering machine, record all

messages received for one month, then turn them into
a best-selling novella.

48. Write a macaronic poem (making use of as many

languages as you are conversant with).

49. Attempt to speak for a day only in questions; write

only in questions.

50. Attempt to become in a state where the mind is

flooded with ideas; attempt to keep as many thoughts
in mind simultaneously as possible. Then write without
looking at the page, typescript or computer screen
(This is "called" invisible writing).

51. Choose a period of time, perhaps five or nine

5 of 9 22/05/2012 06:35 p.m.

82 Writing Experiments by Bernadette Mayer http://www.languageisavirus.com/articles/articles.php?subaction=sho...

months. Every day, write a letter that will never be

sent to a person who does or does not exist, or to a
number of people who do or do not exist. Create a title
for each letter and don't send them. Pile them up as a
book.

52. Etymological work. Experiment with investigating

the etymologies of all words that interest you,
including your own name(s). Approaches to
etymologies: Take a work you've already written, C
preferably something short, look up the etymological O
meanings of every word in that work including words N
like "the" and "a". Study the histories of the words
T
used, then rewrite the work on the basis of the
etymological information found out. Another approach: A
Build poems and writings form the etymological C
families based on the Indo-European language T
constructs, for instance, the BHEL family: bulge, bowl,
belly, boulder, billow, ball, balloon; or the OINO family:
one, alone, lonely, unique, unite, unison, union; not to
speak of one of the GEN families: kin, king,
kindergarten, genteel, gender, generous, genius,
genital, gingerly, pregnant, cognate, renaissance, and
innate!

53. Write a brief bibliography of the science and

philosophy texts that interest you. Create a file of
newspaper articles that seem to relate to the chances
of writing poetry.

54. Write the poem: Ways of Making Love. List them.

55. Diagram a sentence in the old-fashioned way. If

you don't know how, I'll be happy to show you; if you
do know how, try a really long sentence, for instance
from Melville.

56. Turn a list of the objects that have something to do

with a person who has died into a poem or poem form,
in homage to that person.

57. Write the same poem over and over again, in

different forms, until you are weary. Another
experiment: Set yourself the task of writing for four
hours at a time, perhaps once, twice or seven times a
week. Don't stop until hunger and/or fatigue take over.
At the very least, always set aside a four-hour period
once a month in which to write. This is always possible
and will result in one book of poems or prose writing
for each year. Then we begin to know something.

58. Attempt as a writer to win the Nobel Prize in

Science by finding out how thought becomes language,
or does not.

59. Take a traditional text like the pledge of allegiance

to the flag. For every noun, replace it with one that is
seventh or ninth down from the original one in the
dictionary. For instance, the word "honesty" would be
replaced by "honey dew melon." Investigate what
happens; different dictionaries will produce different
results.

60. Attempt to write a poem or series of poems that

will change the world. Does everything written or
dreamed of do this?

61. Write occasional poems for weddings, for rivers, for

birthdays, for other poets' beauty, for movie stars
maybe, for the anniversaries of all kinds of loving

6 of 9 22/05/2012 06:35 p.m.

82 Writing Experiments by Bernadette Mayer http://www.languageisavirus.com/articles/articles.php?subaction=sho...

meetings, for births, for moments of knowledge, for

deaths. Writing for the "occasion" is part of our
purpose as poets in being-this is our work in the
community wherein we belong and work as speakers
for others.

62. Experiment with every traditional form, so as to

know it.

63. Write poems and prose in which you set yourself C

the task of using particular words, chosen at random O
like the spelling exercises of children: intelligence, N
amazing, weigh, weight, camel, camel's, foresight,
T
through, threw, never, now, snow, rein, rain. Make a
story of that! A
C
64. Plan, structure, and write a long work. Consider T
what is the work now needed by the culture to cure
and exact even if by accident the great exorcism of its
1998 sort-of- seeming-not-being. What do we need?
What is the poem of the future?

65. What is communicable now? What more is

communicable?

66. Compose a list of familiar phrases, or phrases that

have stayed in your mind for a long time--from songs,
from poems, from conversation:
What's in a name? That which we call a rose/By any
other name would smell as sweet - Romeo and Juliet
A rose is a rose is a rose - Gertrude Stein
I sing the body electric... - Walt Whitman
A thing of beauty is a joy forever - Keats
Ask not for whom the bell tolls/It tolls for thee - Donne
Look homeward, Angel - Milton
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread - Pope
All's well that ends well - WS
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness - Allen Ginsberg
I think therefore I am - Descartes
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... -
Dickens
O brave new world has such people in it -
Shakespeare, The Tempest, later Huxley
Water water everywhere/Nor any drop to drink -
Coleridge
Curiouser and curiouser - Alice in Wonderland

67. Write the longest most beautiful sentence you can

imagine-make it be a whole page.

68. Set yourself the task of writing in a way you've

never written before, no matter who you are.

69. Attempt to write in a way that's never been written

before.

70. Invent a new form.

71. Write a perfect poem.

72. Write a work that intersperses love with landlords.

73. In a poem, list what you know.

74. Address the poem to the reader.

75. Write household poems-about cooking, shopping,

eating and sleeping.

7 of 9 22/05/2012 06:35 p.m.

82 Writing Experiments by Bernadette Mayer http://www.languageisavirus.com/articles/articles.php?subaction=sho...

76. Write dream collaborations in the lune form.

77. Write poems that only make use of the words

included in Basic English.

78. Attempt to write about jobs and how they affect

the writing of poetry.

79. Write while being read to from science texts, or,

write while being read to by one's lover from any text. C
O
80. Trade poems with others and do not consider them N
your own.
T
81. Exercises in style: Write twenty-five or more A
different versions of one event. C
T
82. Review the statement: "What is happening to me,
allowing for lies and exaggerations which I try to avoid,
goes into my poems."

Learn more about Bernadette Mayer ...

Overcome Writer's Block

Publish Writing Games Writing Exercises

What to cure writers block? Shakespearean Sonnet Generator Writing Prompts

Exquisite Corpse Character Name Generator 66 Writing Experiments by Charles Bernstein

Interactive Writing Cut Up Machine 82 Writing Experiments by Bernadette Mayer

Never-Ending Story Poetry Generator 16 Writing Experiments by Jonathan Mahew

Writing Polls Poetry Bot William S. Burroughs Cut-ups

Madlib Poem Electronic Poetry Kerouacs Belief and Technique for Modern Prose

Characters Names Text Collage Jack Kerouacs Essentials of Spontaneous Prose

Haiku-a-Tron The Cut-Up Method of Brion Gysin

Character Name Generator
Poem Engine Ginsbergs Mind Writing Slogans
Random Name Generator
Translator Rimbauds Systematic Derangement of the Senses
Characters Name Meanings
Random Line Generator The Collage Technique of Anaïs Nin
Characters Name Dictionary
Title-o-Matic Many More...
Baby Name Generator
Writing Prompts
Baby Name Meanings

Pet Names Database

Sentence Builder/Phrase Generator Poetry
Pet Name Generator Graffiti Wall Poetry Contests

Lyrics Great text to use for the cut up machines! Poetry

Quotes Favorite quotations from famous Iambic Pentameter

authors
Action Poetry

8 of 9 22/05/2012 06:35 p.m.

82 Writing Experiments by Bernadette Mayer http://www.languageisavirus.com/articles/articles.php?subaction=sho...

Ethnopoetics

Poets

Poetry Analysis

Poetry Prizes and Awards

Poetry Reading

World Poetry Day

Advertise
C
Privacy Policy/Disclaimer | ©2001-2012 O
Languageisavirus.com
N
T
A
C
T

9 of 9 22/05/2012 06:35 p.m.