Some thoughts on collaborative poetry writing

Collaborative poetry goes back as far as poetry itself. You could say all writing is collaboration, how we draw from writing that precedes us, that inspires us. Some collaboration is more obvious. A poem attributed to more than one author is an examples. Other collaborations are more subtle. A poet may get a first line from another poet, a friend, or a source text, and this may or may not be mentioned in the notes of a book.

Still others collaboration is never mentioned at all. A poet write down things a friend says at a party, integrates that into a poem. Or maybe a poet remembers something overhear during a movie or television show.

There are so many reasons to bring collaboration into your writing life. The first and foremost is that it’s fun. It works a different section of your brain; it forces you to react to someone else. Often and ideally, the result is another voice entirely different than any one collaborating author. Denise Duhamel and Maureen Seaton, two poets who have collaborated for years, call it their third collaborative voice.

The scholarly and clinical literature out there shows that using collaborative writing techniques deepen interpersonal communication and strengthens bonds in a group. The writing activity becomes a venue of personal disclosure with other people also involved in the process, based on what one researcher calls “mutual concern.” Group members have a chance to develop and demonstrate proficiency in basic group skills. Charles Gillespie, a clinical addiction counselor who has written a number of articles on collaborative poetry writing in a therapeutic setting, talks about how writing poems together leads to a “sociopoetic process.”

“Poems that capture authentic human experience, no matter how simple or sophisticated,” Gillespie writes, “are the poems that generate the most discussion and identification.”

Collaboration with found material

“Poem Beginning with a Line by _____.” This could be another poet, which is the time-honored tradition. It could also be something overheard, a line from a TV show or magazine article. The poet Ross Gay has a poem called “Poem Beginning with a Line Overheard in the Gym,” for example.

First poet writes/says a line, second poet writes/says the next. Repeat as necessary.

One word at a time–out loud, with a note-taker, or with one person typing, or both writing/typing. The collaborative poems of Matthew Rohrer and Joshua Beckman are often done live.

This is collaborative poetry as performance. We will be doing this for sure.

Asynchronous collaboration

Collaboration is often two or more people in the same room. But other times it’s not. It’s done asynchronously: over snail mail, email, and now with collaborative methods online like Google documents.

Renga

I am still looking into this Japanese form. Ron Padgett’s excellent Handbook of Poetic Forms calls this form a collaborative form. Here’s how the Academy of American Poets explains how rengas are written:

Group sestina

Sestina, six poets: Each poet picks a word for each teleuton/end word; each poet then writes a stanza; all write the envoi. Generator here.

ABCs

An abecedarian uses the alphabet’s order as its design. (Fun fact: Psalms 31:10-31, the famous “virtuous woman” passage,” is actually an abecedarian acrostic poem that uses the Hebrew alphabet.)

Exquisite corpse

The classic group poetry exercise. “Play Exquisite Corpse” from Academy of American Poets