tHe PoweR of raNdomiSing sTories - coLLaboraTive coLLage poEtry (short version)

This is a trial in collaborative collage poem making that Janieke and I did one night. 

We are creatives with an interest in healing. For the longer blog version which discusses the overlap of creativity and healing go here

The Creating:

The aim of the collage poem process was to create poems that combined content from both of our thoughts and experiences.

We chose a couple of themes:

1. Travel - Janieke's recent trip and any travel memories I had that came to mind
2. any internal condition/questions we had been going through recently

Step 1:

We wrote mini poems/thoughts on pieces of paper - as many as were required. It was great combining both a concrete experience (travel) and introspective thoughts.

 
Once these were written, we read them to each other in their original form, and handed them over to the other person who then cut chosen words/phrases out and placed them in one of four jars.

Once this process was complete, we both chose two jars and two backgrounds each and proceeded to empty a jar and order the words contained into a poem combination of our own choosing.

The Results:

These are the completed four pieces of writing...

1.

I am in habit so steep
The magnitude collecting in a bucket
How am I Mt Agog - telling a hole in it
A voyeur in Basil - rows, paper, incense on corners

How to place the middle of nowhere
It was the papers
the same air

You need not fall forwards - crow
I watch an eclipse
Kindness, swipe me

2.

 
Scared to travel - Lap it up

Under construction the long way
Peoples' homes view it
petals, rice, sand on an airport

Wayan around, as if above such bad news
And when questioned says,
Oh wait, I don't pocket them
Colour, children, strangers

I put everything for a moment
Through the turnstile
 
3.

 Being in a Place

This place I travel through might
I gather, install
Point A, Point B

One day I was at myself
I was water, matter
But don't mind me
Point me to the General Electric

So my driver takes me, shoes off, of his affairs
No knowing my movement
Have I really mechanisms of control?

Why give him one step in front
To inhabit my world
Everyone lap it up
Be in the same

Thank you is here

4. 

 
Placed with Doorways

Collect this bit
Rest your body differently each time

Tiny island street
A minute of drink, new food
Wondered how I got there?

Make my offerings
Take the next day with feet in the freedom

I kid
I leave a home and return different


The Presentation

We placed the four collage poems up on a mirror wall (of all things) and surrounded them with the remainder of photos and words - in mural fashion. It is at once a finishing, and the beginning of a second iteration...