The Exquisite Corpse
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JoeUser Forums
A while back I posted a few poems. (See "Deaf Trees and Bladders", "Zoroaster's Filibusters", and "Watch me now".) These poems are credited to The Exquisite Corpse, which is not a person, but a process. What I did was, on the dial-up BBS that I used to run, I set up a mailbox. The users would send in a line of random poetic-sounding stuff. Every once in a while I would open the mail, collect the lines into stanzas, make up a title, and post the resulting poem for all to see and marvel at. It was a very interesting and fun experiment, with a lot of very amusing, if unintentional, juxtapositions.
Since I have (I hope!) enough presence on JU now to get a little notice, I thought it would be very cool to resurrect The Exquisite Corpse (if you'll pardon the pun). So I created a new mail account: [email protected]. Make up a line that sounds poetic, or crib it from your favorite song or author, I don't really care. Just get a line and send it in.
If this takes off, I'd ask people not to send in more than either 1 line per article they post or 1 line per day, whichever is more. It's always sad when you realize that two of your lines are right next to each other; half the fun is seeing how your line fits with whatever someone else sent in.
Just to give you another little sample, here's one more poem from the old Exquisite Corpse:
Two Apples And A Hammer
The unfunded mandate's left a lingering oppression
Ooo, that's harsh.
a hundred and sixty-one thousand WHAT?
Confusion IS my epitaph
Sun on shoulder, eyes that smoulder
Steve? Yes. Steve? Yes. Steve? Yes.
A martini built for two
Weird sex! Obsession! Comic books!
The waters a bit sharky, but other than that.
Randy young bottoms all tied up with string
The fantods of the evening bilked the slippper! Mirabu rudesby!
I flailed about aimlessly for over an hour.
Wynona's got a big purple beaver.
And his last thought before the rotating steel blades hit him was:
Butter and bread, cheese on my head
Then crunchy bagels flew through her head
You guys are real dickheads sometimes.
I wandered lonely as a cumulonimbus
Sorry, that's confidential information.
The answer of course is...
You look, sometimes, and sometimes you see
Since I have (I hope!) enough presence on JU now to get a little notice, I thought it would be very cool to resurrect The Exquisite Corpse (if you'll pardon the pun). So I created a new mail account: [email protected]. Make up a line that sounds poetic, or crib it from your favorite song or author, I don't really care. Just get a line and send it in.
If this takes off, I'd ask people not to send in more than either 1 line per article they post or 1 line per day, whichever is more. It's always sad when you realize that two of your lines are right next to each other; half the fun is seeing how your line fits with whatever someone else sent in.
Just to give you another little sample, here's one more poem from the old Exquisite Corpse:
Two Apples And A Hammer
The unfunded mandate's left a lingering oppression
Ooo, that's harsh.
a hundred and sixty-one thousand WHAT?
Confusion IS my epitaph
Sun on shoulder, eyes that smoulder
Steve? Yes. Steve? Yes. Steve? Yes.
A martini built for two
Weird sex! Obsession! Comic books!
The waters a bit sharky, but other than that.
Randy young bottoms all tied up with string
The fantods of the evening bilked the slippper! Mirabu rudesby!
I flailed about aimlessly for over an hour.
Wynona's got a big purple beaver.
And his last thought before the rotating steel blades hit him was:
Butter and bread, cheese on my head
Then crunchy bagels flew through her head
You guys are real dickheads sometimes.
I wandered lonely as a cumulonimbus
Sorry, that's confidential information.
The answer of course is...
You look, sometimes, and sometimes you see
