Autopoetic technique #2: Babbling
This technique's constraint is word choice. We are going to visit the Library of Babel and collect words. This exercise is similar to the previous, but it is more extreme. You aren't allowed to use any words outside the one from your random page.
- Visit https://libraryofbabel.info/
- You can read the "about" page if you want. It's a fun site based on Jorge Luis Borges' The Library of Babel.
- Click "Random"
- Click "Anglishize"
- Choose the words you want to use
- Write a poem using these words
- You are not allowed to add words
- You don't need to use all the words, but you should use as many as possible
- You cannot repeat words, but you can you can use words composed of other words (e.g., "Smirk" could be used as both "smirk" and "mirk")
This is a hard exercise because you aren't really able to say much. Instead you have to gesture at meaning through a sort of poetic action painting. All you have is your words, the way you order them, and the way you space them to make a poem.
Here's what I ended up writing:
spot god
din
spy a sly smirk
ice
yew bog mirk
nil
It took me a lot of time messing around to get this one done. That's okay, it's a hard and very limiting exercise.
The basic idea with this poem is that the position of the words is used to convey more meaning. If I were to remove imposed constraints, it would read something like this.
Spot god above the din
See the ice under a sly smirk
Nothing below the yew bog murk
I don't really like this piece of work, but it was a good exercise to really stretch meaning through the structure and placement of a really small set of words. Don't be too hard on yourself and stretch with this exercise. Good luck!