- Take three different poems you are writing and intercut between them
to produce discontinuities. - Write down twenty independent phrases or sentences, and then
arrange them so as to produce some continuities and some
discontinuities. - Allow your mind to drift as you write, and include thoughts which do
not follow on from each other. - Write a continuous narrative, and then cut it up and rearrange it in
such a way as to create discontinuities. - Write a sentence and then follow it with another one which takes up the
initial idea only tangentially. Continue this process. You will find that a
mixture of continuities and discontinuities are produced by this
approach. - Go back to some of the previous exercises, such as collage and word
association, which encourage a more discontinuous approach.
Discontinuity always goes hand in hand with continuity. Such poems also
usually include numerous continuities, in the sense of recurring ideas
which bind the poem together. Also, one of the advantages of using a dis-
continuous approach may be that it forces the reader to discover new links
between disconnected ideas.
Lexical experimentation
Lexical experimentation is concerned with choice of words, what is tradi-
tionally known as vocabulary, but in linguistics is referred to as the lexicon.
This can range from using very unusual words and making them a central
part of the poem, to hyphenating words to recombine them, to making up
words. Here are some examples of poets who have experimented with the
lexicon. The following poem ‘A Lesson from the Cockerel’ is by Maggie
O’Sullivan:
Example 8.14
POPPY THANE. PENDLE DUST. BOLDO SACHET GAUDLES
GIVE GINGER. GIVE INK. SMUDGE JEEDELA LEAVINGS,
TWITCH JULCE. WORSEN.WRIST DRIP. SKINDA. JANDLE.
UDDER DIADEMS INTERLUCE.
ICYCLE OPALINE RONDA.
CRIMINAL CRAB RATTLES ON THE LUTE.
CONSTITUENTS BLINDINGLY RAZOR-GUT.
SHOOKER —GREENY CRIMSON
NEAPTIDE COMMON PEAKS IN THEPostmodern poetry, avant-garde poetics 179