Friday Writings #163: Backwards, Upside Down, Inside Out

  

 

Dear Word Weavers, in late 2023 a very dear friend of many years died. I wrote a poem about that some months later, but was disappointed in it. It said things I wanted to say, but the saying seemed somehow lack-lustre. I let it lapse for a while.

Recently I was looking through one of my favourite books of exercises for poets: WINGBEATS II (the sequel to an equal favourite, just-plain WINGBEATS), edited by Scott Wiggerman and David Meischen, with chapters by a number of other poets. I came upon a chapter called ‘An Exercise in Derangement’ written by Carmen Gimenez Smith. She suggests copying out a poem backwards, word by word, starting with the final word and finishing with the first one. But that’s only the first step. Then she advises treating the result as ‘an open space’ which may be used in a number of further possible ways — turning verbs into nouns and vice-versa; or using the fractured syntax which the back-to-front poem ends up with to create ‘new and strange phrases’. Her idea is that you may make a completely new poem.

 

I didn’t go quite so far with my elegy for my friend — for one thing, I didn’t end up with a poem on a completely different subject, but a more interesting version of the original. Reading it through backwards gave me a new perspective. The new version keeps the reverse order, beginning at what was the end, and finishing with what was the start. In between, the ‘deranged’ sequence of words suggested ways to re-order the details: rewriting some, omitting others, adding a few that weren’t there before. It’s now a poem I’m much happier to make public. I’ll use it as my link for this week.

(In the process, I abandoned the original Sevenling form. I just now went back and tried yet another revision, much closer to the original, in couplets. I think it's better than the original, but I don't like it as much as the 'deranged' version.)

A thing that wasn't part of the exercise, but which it occurred to me to try with some other poems, is to write the backwards version (initially) as a stream of prose, omitting punctuation. I find this opens up a wider new creative space to work in.

Your optional prompt this week is to rewrite one of your not-quite-working pieces by transcribing it backwards, and then following wherever that leads you. (Tip: try it on a fairly short poem, or else it could become too tedious and time-consuming.) Perhaps you'd care to show us the earlier version too — either by a link on your post or including it there? Up to you!

Guidelines: One post per person. 369 words maximum (excluding title and notes). It can be old or new, poetry or prose, on prompt or not. Use Mister Linky, below, to take us to that post on your blog. When possible, please enjoy and comment on each other’s posts. (Talk to us here too, if you wish.)

Preview:
 Next week, Magaly will invite us to find inspiration in the phrase “love is love”.