A Reading Group Experiments with Poetry (Experimentos con Poesía en un club de lectura)

A Reading Group Experiments with Poetry
Duboué, Juan Pablo

32


Materials
After reading several novels, short stories and tales it felt natural to include poetry in the reading group I have with some of my former students of English especially since the majority of them had been asking to deal with poetry for some time. Moreover, they all felt enthusiastic about the idea of experimenting with creative writing a little bit and doing this in the form of a poem would imply an interesting activity for students to express themselves in English in a different, freer and more artistic way.
The selected poets were Charles Bernstein and Bernadette Mayer, both contemporary poets belonging to the Language School. Since the Language School focuses on the idea of language dictating meaning and places importance in the involvement of the reader in the text to construct meaning, it seemed logical to deal with poetry belonging to this movement so that the members of the reading group could test their language and interpretation skills at the same time. Also, both poets devised different techniques or 'experiments' to write poetry which would come in handy to work with the reading group and achieve interesting results.
From Charles Bernstein I chose the poems Dear Mr. Fanelli and Self-Help. The reason to do so was simply because both share a certain 'universality' if one may say so in the sense that they are modern and current. In Dear Mr. Fanelli the reader comes across a long poem that is written as if it were a typical letter of complaint, however, as the poem progresses the line that divides the formality of a letter of complaint and the personal, more direct tone of a poem becomes blurred. This dichotomy is what interested me the most as well as the various elements of irony and sense of humour that are also present in Self-Help. This poem is also one that members of the reading group could feel easily identified with beginning with its title (we all know what self-help is, especially in this society where self-help books have become bestsellers). The structure of this poem is also interesting since it provides readers with two sentences per line, separated by a period and a dash. The first sentence of each line contains the so called 'problem' whereas the second one has the ever so ironic 'solution' or 'self-help piece of advice.'
In the case of Bernadette Mayer, I decided to concentrate more on the playfulness of her poetry, especially with grammatical topics, as is the case of Failures in Infinitives where, as its title suggests, the poem has been written entirely using the 'to + verb' structure (infinitive). Apart from its thematic relevance, it is interesting to see how one can take a topic that is extremely mechanical and practical as is the case of a verb tense and yet turn it into art given the appropriate frame and context. The second poem, We Eat Out Together, was chosen to show members of the reading group a typical descriptive poem with an interesting twist and an original metaphor.
It is important to highlight that these poems were chosen with the specific idea that, after careful reading and discussion, members of the reading group would then have to come up with their very own poems either mimicking the style, themes, structure or whatever it was that called the attention of the 4 abovementioned ones. Therefore, the purpose of the meetings of this reading group during the time these poems were tackled was not only to enjoy, analyse and discuss poetry, but also to be able to produce an original poem as well.
Before the first meeting, members of the reading group were told that we were going to be dealing with poetry and were asked to simply browse the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Magazine online archive available at eclipsearchive.org/projects/LANGUAGE to get a feel of the type of poetry we were going to be working with in our future meetings. As members of the group did that, the only idea they were asked to bear in mind was the concept of "experimental poetry." I purposefully decided not to give any definition of what experimental poetry could be since I did not wish to affect their research in any way. In this way, the members could focus on any aspect(s) of the poetry being read that seemed 'experimental' to them and comment on these in our first meeting.

Group Dynamics
The reading group is made up of 7 members ranging from 22 to 31 years old. All of them have an advanced level of English (CAE or CPE level) and they have all been my students in the past. We usually meet thrice a month and we started with the reading group in 2012. Throughout the 2 years we have been meeting all of the members of the reading group suggested that they wanted to experience creative writing in one way or another. Therefore, when the time felt right and almost all of them were 'on the same page' with this desire to write, I decided to carry on the experiment that is reported in this paper. Also, as I mentioned before, the idea of orienting the creative writing experience towards poetry rather than any other genre felt right since members would have more freedom and could come up with beautiful productions in just a few lines (as opposed to having to write a 5 pages long short story, for example). In the words of Kristina Robertson: "Writing poetry is a great exercise for English language learners. It gives them a chance to experiment with language and vocabulary, and to freely share their ideas without the confinement of perfect grammar or firm structures." (ColorinColorado.org).
This report is the product of five consecutive reading group sessions in which we dealt with the abovementioned poems and experimented with creative writing activities posited by the poets themselves. Following is a simple draft of how I organized the meetings and the issues tackled:
Session 1:
(Prior to this session members of the reading group had already been told to browse the Language Magazine online archive).
General impressions on the poems they saw featured in the website.
Brainstorming on what 'experimental poetry' could be.
Session 2: Charles Bernstein
Reading and discussing Dear Mr. Fanelli. (The focus of the discussion was on current issues of the world, cosmopolitan cities and its problems, politicians and general complaints).
Collaborative writing: A poem in the style of the abovementioned one addressed to a politician, celebrity or influential person.
Session 3: Charles Bernstein and Bernadette Mayer
Reading Self-Help aloud, but only the first sentence containing the problem, so that members could come up with solutions or pieces of advice.
Reading the poem completely.
Opinions on why this poem can be considered experimental / Collaborative writing.
Reading Mayer's We Eat Out Together.
Homework for next session: Option 1) consider how you would describe your own 'heart.' Think about possible metaphors, imagery, cases of personification, etc. Option 2) How would you describe your dating life or dating experiences? Think about possible metaphors, imagery, cases of personification, etc.
Session 4: Bernadette Mayer
Reading Failures in Infinitives.
Members' opinions on the form of this poem.
Working with Bernstein's and Mayer's experiments to writing poetry.

The experience of this reading group was completely different from that of reading individually since the idea for these specific sessions was to be able to work collaboratively and to write poems as a group as well. Therefore, the whole experience was intended to function in a reading group and, though it could have been done individually, a huge part would be missing, that is, the collaborative writing experiment. After these sessions members not only felt they had expanded their vocabulary, grammar and general knowledge of the English language and culture, but also found themselves being able to discuss various topics and themes and to voice their opinions both orally and in the written form. Also, members were ecstatic with the final outcome (their very own poems) since they had never attempted creative writing before.

Text Discussion & Approach
Since the four poems dealt with in the reading group are very different ones, each was dealt with differently focusing on several aspects relevant to the reading and analysis of poetry. However, before elaborating on each of the poems separately, it should be said that in all four poems we paid attention to the external structure and most common stylistic devices which members were already aware of since this was not the first time in their lives they were reading poetry. Therefore, comments as to the form, meter, rhythm and other formal aspects of analysing poetry were discussed with all four poems especially so that students could see how in Experimental Poetry the line between a perfect Shakespearean sonnet and a long poem with no rhyme and a different structure such as Self-Help is blurred. As explained by Catherine Wagner in the online article The Politics of Meter: on Traditional Forms:
The most influential recent poetic avant-garde—the Language poets—emphasized the political aspect of form, its manifestation of ideology. Traditional forms were seen as overdetermining, totalizing; such forms insist upon closure, closing down possibility, perhaps even lulling the reader into passivity. If we use traditional language patterns, we risk replicating history's oppressive structures, enforcing a formal agenda that is not emergent from or attentive to the now of the making of the poem, and, further, does not encourage the reader to take an active role in the construction of the piece. These arguments are bound up with familiar arguments against identity-based and narrative poetry. (Wagner Poets.org)
Since Language Poetry is all about the 'reader' and its active role in understanding and giving meaning to a poem, the text discussion was more focused on the members' emotions and the thematic contents of each poem rather than on form and stylistic devices being Catherine Wagner's article and the Reader Response Approach the basis for this decision.
In Dear Mr. Fanelli I decided to begin the reading session by posing a question directly addressed to in the poem:
Imagine you could write a letter/email of complaint to any important person in the world, living or dead. Who would that person be and why?
Some of the answers were as follows:
God
The Pope
The President of a country
Kings/Queens
Celebrities
In this way, we were all 'warming up' for the actual reading of the poem. Some of the contributions and the complaints members of the group came up with were very interesting and up to date, such as complaints about the current state of affairs in Argentina's government, our country's economy and financial status and even Democracy as a philosophical conundrum. After quite a heated discussion in which complaints related to politics and religion prevailed, we were ready to read the poem aloud. I first read it quickly and without making a lot of pauses so that students could get a general idea of what it was about since it is a rather long poem. Nevertheless, in terms of lexis it is not difficult at all, so all the members of the reading group could perfectly understand it in detail without me having to explain a new word or phrase. Immediately after this first reading, the members were divided into groups and they were asked to read it again, considering the following questions:
Who is Mr. Fanelli? Who is the speaker of the poem?
What is the speaker of the poem doing?
What's the setting in time and place?
Is this what you would call a traditional poem? Why (not)?
Find instances during the poem in which the speaker seems to derive from its main objective. Why do you think this is so?
What is the overall tone in this poem? What words, ideas, images or structure (s) contribute to this tone?
It was interesting to notice that all of the members agreed with their findings and answers to the questions posed. There was a general agreement as to the idea of Mr. Fanelli being some kind of official of the city council or representative of the station the persona of the poem is complaining about, as well as the experimental nature of this poem in terms of length, the absence of rhyme and even the topic. Most members would have expected a typical poem about love, nature or any other stereotypical issue that comes into one's mind when one thinks about poetry. This brought about the discussion on whether what can be considered poetry or not which draw the conclusion voiced by one of the members (who is a teacher of Art) that 'poetry written bearing in mind an artistic purpose is, of course, art.' Finally, all of the members agreed that, although this poem begins as a distant email of complaint, it quickly shifts to a heartfelt testimony of a human being trying to have some kind of direct contact with his/her addressee surpassing all laws and formalities used when writing a letter of complaint. The lines that start with the direct personal questions seem to be the agreed upon turning point in which the speaker of this poem seems to derive from his/her main objective and starts to simply procrastinate.
For the second and final activity, members of the group were told they were going to write a poem themselves following the style of the poem dealt with. They were going to do it in pairs so that they worked collaboratively and could have more ideas as to how to frame the poem (especially those feeling less artistic). The instructions were simply to concentrate on a person and a complaint they would like to present to that person and following is an example of the results this activity produced:


Dear 'less' Politician (by Rocío and Paula)
Soulless, careless
Thoughtless
All words containing
Less
I'm not saying that
Every single politician
Is evil
If you feel identified…
Well, that's your problem.
My point is that
Maybe
Just maybe
You should start thinking about
The person you've decided to spend
The rest of your life with.
Manipulating
People for your own
Selfish
Objectives?
You are the reflection
Of devious ambition
So, please
Mr. Insaurralde
T-H-I-N-K
Be less
Less
And more
Ful(l).


Of course if one sees through the obvious political undertone of the poem these members produced, it is clear how they were able to express their emotions and thoughts in a poetic style and how they even played with form and structure as well, such as the styling they decided to use for the word 'think' and how they achieved a good play on words with 'less' and 'full'. In fact, members even got the idea of what Language Poetry is quite easily since all the poems they produced contained certain puns or language twists as the ones I have just exemplified. All in all, in this first session, the reading group got to read their very first 'L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E' poem and were able to go beyond the poem itself to make a first attempt to produce an original poem themselves which was the intended purpose of this session.
On our next session, I decided to plunge into the poem directly, yet without reading it completely. Since the chosen poem was Self-Help what I did was I read the first part of each line which has a 'problem' and members were instructed to come up with an advice or solution. The results were quite interesting as follows: (the advice the members gave has been put in italics)
Home team suffers string of losses – Change the captain.
Retreat and plan.
Quadruple bypass – Start planning your funeral.
Stop smoking!
Marriage on rocks – Couple's therapy.
Gay marriages annulled – Come to Argentina!

It is interesting to see how members of the group came up with some humorous remarks or pieces of advice although they hadn't read the poem before and didn't know, once they did, it was going to be an ironic poem. This says a lot about how Language Poetry involves the reader and gives him/her a fundamental role in the poem itself that is, as a conveyor of meaning which was a reconceptualization of the relation between writer and reader that Language Poets were interested in:
This reconceptualization of the relation between writer and reader was one of the ways that Language Poetry pitted itself against a model of language in which communication was imagined as a "conduit," "transom," or "bullet." In that model, a sender was seen to transfer a stable message to a receiver with little flux or interference. By focusing instead on the materiality of the message and the context of its transmission, Language Poets continued to modify and reconfigure the communicative model, repeatedly questioning the naturalness of language in the process. (Dworkin 3-4)

The fact that this relationship between writer and reader is considered paramount by Language Poets was quite evident to grasp in the sort of 'warm-up' activity that we did with the members of the group and how the results were pretty much similar to the actual complete poem. This also speaks highly of Bernstein's craft and ability to involve the reader in his poetry, especially a poem such as Self-Help which provides a huge variety of elements for discussion. Once we read the whole poem, members were surprised to see the underlying tone which they described as 'ironic', 'humorous' and, in some cases even 'pessimistic' or 'fatalistic.' In the words of Richard Rorty in Contingency, Irony, Solidarity:
I shall define an "ironist" as someone who fulfills three conditions: (1) She has radical and continuing doubts about the final vocabulary she currently uses, because she has been impressed by other vocabularies, vocabularies taken as final by people or books she has encountered; (2) she realizes that argument phrased in her present vocabulary can neither underwrite nor dissolve these doubts; (3) insofar as she philosophizes about her situation, she does not think that her vocabulary is closer to reality than others, that it is in touch with a power not herself (Rorty 73).
The abovementioned quotation seems to pretty much summarize Bernstein's tone in this poem, especially the idea of one's own vocabulary being closer to reality than others. Since opinions were already starting to come up I decided it was best to agree, as a group, on what we could consider 'experimental poetry' to be like and try to create a definition to suit our framework and the previous and following sessions we would be dealing with this so called experimental poetry. Taking into consideration the theory that had already been read at home by the members of the group as well as their exposure to these two poems, we all brainstormed a little bit on what experimental poetry consisted on:


What is Experimental Poetry? – Brainstorming
Unusual poetry in the sense of originality in style and form
Visual poetry
Combining poetry with other forms of art
Experimenting with other forms of texts such as newspaper headlines, obituaries, songs, etc.

The above chart is the exact copy of what we brainstormed as a group and I believe it is pretty accurate in its portrayal of what experimental poetry could be. I decided not to simply hand out members of the group a copy with various definitions of experimental poetry for them to read aloud and discuss, rather I thought it best to create a definition for ourselves and for the purposes of these sessions since it was all about creativity and working/writing/reading collaboratively.
To end the Bernstein poems I decided that we were going to create a poem in the style of Self-Help using one of both Bernstein and Mayer's experiments to write a collaborative poem. The experiment simply consisted on each member writing a line in a piece of paper and then to organise the lines as we pleased. I decided to modify this experiment a little bit in the sense that each of us wrote a problem and an advice so that we would mimic the style of the abovementioned poem. Following is the final version of the poem we created:

Optimists Should Burn in Hell
Optimists should burn in Hell for the following reasons:
A pigeon shat on my new shirt as I was walking to a job interview – Oh, just wash it quickly no one will notice! Besides it's good luck!
It's 3 am and the neighbours' alarm has woken me up for the eleventh time – Poor neighbours, they're away on a funeral. Have some respect.
I've been queuing for hours and the power went off in the bank – Well, everybody knows you should take a book with you when you have to wait for something. Use your time productively! Make a list.
There's a thunderstorm and it's my sister's wedding. – Aren't thunderstorms romantic? Check "Besides…" from point 1.
My flight has been delayed, AGAIN. – You know what that means? More time to spend in the Free Shop!
I've just broken up and I hate the world. – Time to get out there! Worry about yourself now! You'll find someone, the perfect match is waiting just around the corner.
My computer just died. I have lost everything. – Oh, but you sure have backed it all up! Everybody backs up, didnt' you?
My whole family just died in a horrible car accident. – I'm so sorry for your loss. Thank God they're with the Lord now.


The title of the poem was invented by one of the members of the group when we all noticed we had come up with pieces of advice that seemed too cheeky and optimistic to be true. It is also interesting to see how this poem brought about issues that we deal with in everyday life and we could all see how even something dramatic or monotonous may be turned into poetry or art if we just delve deep into it and give it a twist, as, in the case of this poem, an ironic, humorous, even mocking twist.
On our final part of this session, we read We Eat Out Together by Bernadette Mayer since I wanted members of the reading group to see how two poets belonging to the same movement can choose to create and experiment with language in different ways; from Bernstein's clearly structured Self-Help to this specific poem by Mayer where the emphasis is on imagery. I had each member read one line until the end of the poem so that we could all savour the images present in We Eat Out Together since it is true that each line contains a powerful, vivid, sometimes raw image that is simply 'there' to call your attention. I had planned two simple questions for discussion which remained to be asked because as soon as we read the poem twice, some of the members already started talking about how original it was to describe someone's heart and what the different images could mean. I was witnessing a true Reader Response Approach reaction taking place and it was not in the mere sense of the reader's opinion, in fact, we were all debating aspects of poetry such as imagery and form. Some of the conclusions that we all draw as a group were as follows:
The poem feels like a long sentence though it is easy to read.
It seems to be about dating and the choices one makes, but expressed using metaphors such as food, vegetables and different types of cuisine.
It opens and closes with a line containing the word 'heart' yet with different usage.
It directly addresses 'poetry'.
It has a fun-loving, carefree tone.
Since members of the group were quick to realise about the use of the word 'heart' in the poem, I decided to give as a 'homework' activity an exercise to do in pairs, groups or by ourselves in which they had to describe their own hearts or the experience of dating. Little did I know that members would bring full poems to our next session as a result of this 'thinking' activity. Following are two of these poems whose writers chose to remain anonymous:

Saturday Night Dinner
The sound of street musicians
playing some horrible
outdated rock tunes
as the girl that is with them
goes table by table
asking for a contribution
while a baby girl cries
inconsolably
in the table opposite ours
and a couple nearby
seems to be arguing
about something the man did
like months ago.
Men:
it's always men
right?

Mojitos
Hot night
Sweat dripping
Too hot
For a walk
Too hot
Even for a walk
Hot night
That one was closed
And the one we
Agreed upon
Filled with tourists
Watching some
Soccer game
Not my type at all
Hot night
More walking
Sweet talking
And
Small talk
You wanted to grab my hand
I could feel it
I played cool
Hot night
Found one
Finally
Too hot
Let's go inside
Hot night
Air conditioning
20 degrees Celsius
Not so hot now
Cool, but the sweat
Was sticking my white
T-shirt to the mahogany chair
Hot night
Mirrors everywhere
House, chill out
A little dubstep
But I had no doubt
And neither did you
We agreed on everything
Even on the mojitos


For our last session, I decided to work with Mayer's Failures in Infinitives since it is a typical example of a language poem given the fact that the poetess is experimenting with something purely grammatical (the infinitive, as the title of the poem suggests), yet the result is a beautiful, artistic piece of work. I wanted to show the members of this group how we can ultimately find poetry (and create it) everywhere and in any structure, context or form. In the words of Mayer herself:
Explore the possibilities of lists, puzzles, riddles, dictionaries,
almanacs, etc. Consult the thesaurus where categories for the word "word" include: word as news, word as message, word as information, word as story, word as order or command, word as vocable, word as instruction, promise, vow, contract. (Mayer – University of Pennsylvania – online source).

It is in this way then that I wanted members of the reading group to experience poetry, by showing them the experimental side of it and exposing them to poems they wouldn't have come across as easily as a Shakespearean sonnet so to speak. As a pre-reading task I asked members of the group to simple complete a sentence using an infinitive with 'to' with something that is real to them and their lives. Following are the results of this activity:

Failure…
To speak in front of an audience To start a relationship
To learn from my mistakes To graduate
To start the gym / the diet To achieve my goals
To say how I feel To acquire independence

At first sight I could clearly see how the members of the group were already opening up with some of their ideas and comments, which would prove to be extremely beneficial for the poem we were about to read and the collaborative writing activity that came with it. The poem was read twice and by different members of the reading group taking turns to read it, since it is a very long poem with heavy a content and a plethora of emotions. Since this was our last poem I decided not to ask any questions after the second reading and to simply wait for a few seconds and listen to what the members had to say. At the beginning, members generally concentrated on how obvious it was that the infinitive was the norm in this poem and they could see the repetitive effect it had on the reader, a certain dreariness, but also, a certain familiarity, an idea of routine. Other participants commented on the repetition of certain words and that these contributed to the effect of either emphasis or simply the monotony of life. Finally, and probably the most interesting contribution was that some of them could notice how the poem progressed from a 'list' or an enumeration of ever day activities to a deeper, emotional criticism of parenting, society and even the need for money; as well as social issues such as bigotry: and it had all been perfectly expressed in simple sentences in the infinitive.
As a way to close these reading sessions purely based on experimental poetry, members of the reading group were divided in pairs and had to work together to come up with a poem in the style of Mayer's Failures in Infinitives. Therefore, the only rule was that they had to include as many lines in the infinitive as they could. Following is the poem that I wrote together with one of the members:
A Study on Spite in the Infinitive
Really clever of you
To send your minions
To spy on me
To look down upon me
To retaliate
Quite clever of you
To plot against me
To come up with
The most inconceivable
Ideas to harm me
Pretty wise of you
To retreat, plan
And attack
I am but a plastic
Sitting duck
Unaware
Unchanged
Now distraught
Rather Monte Cristonian of you
To harbour grudges
For some time
Keep them in a secret
Compartment of your soul
Or is it your heart?
Or is it your brain?
– All of the above
Tell me how
Does it feel
To breed threats
And ill deeds galore
I really want to know
How do you live
With yourself
After what you've
Done?

As a 'homework/closing activity', members were asked to choose some of the experiments of both Bernstein's and Mayer's writing experiments and create as many poems as they'd like to to post to the blog we have as a reading group. Some of these poems have been included in this paper as an annex.

Critical Support
Although the majority of the critical support for this paper has already been quoted in the previous sections, I believe I should make it explicit that the main 'approach' that I had in mind to devise these sessions was, of course, the Reader Response Approach to poetry since it went perfectly well with the needs of the reading group and the purpose of these sessions which was to enjoy poetry and, most importantly, to react to the poems from one's own personal experiences and feelings:
Unlike text-based approaches such as New Criticism, which are grounded upon some objective meaning already present in the work being examined, reader-response criticism argues that a text has no meaning before a reader experiences—reads—it. The reader-response critic's job is to examine the scope and variety of reader reactions and analyze the ways in which different readers, sometimes called "interpretive communities," make meaning out of both purely personal reactions and inherited or culturally conditioned ways of reading. (Poetryfoundation.org)

If one follows the idea of the abovementioned quotation then, the reading group could be seen as an interpretive community within which we all analysed and responded to the texts being read. Most of the reactions were 'purely personal' as was seen in the strong feelings members of the group had after reading, for example, Dear Mr. Fanelli. I also decided to work with the Reader Response Approach since its main ideas went perfectly well with the creative side of the sessions. Since members were almost always expected to end a session either by collaboratively writing their own poems or by coming up with a poem following the structure of those seen; the chosen approach served indirectly as a way for participants to start reacting towards poetry on a more personal basis, which would undoubtedly translate into the finding of their very own 'voices' when producing poems themselves. It should also be made evident that the idea of choosing to work with experimental poetry, specifically the Language School, was not a random decision. This was done on the basis that the selected poems all had a certain content of familiarity and universality with which members of the reading group would easily feel identified with, and motivated, to continue reading and exploring poetry. In the words of Craig Dworkin in The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poetry when referring to Language Poets:
For many of the Language writers, [the] self was replaced with an Althusserian subject, constructed at the intersection of social institutions, and the poet understood as an "author function" in Foucaudlian terms. Others envisioned a multiple and contradictory subject in the terms proposed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari; while still others picked up on the poetic tradition of Arthur Rimbaud's sense of "being thought" or "being written" because "Je est une autre [The "I" is an other]." As the force of the authorial "I" was dispersed in these ways, an attendant argument for the empowerment of the reader was proposed. Based on Umberto Eco's model of the "open" text, and encouraged by Roland Barthes' prediction that "the death of the author" would be predicated on the birth of the reader, Language Poets frequently invoked the figure of an active reader collaboratively constructing meanings rather than passively receiving the writer's message. (Dworkin 3)

And it is in the abovementioned quotation that lies the most important support and basis for this report and the carrying out of this 'experiment' with my reading group. Not only do we have the presence of this 'author function' writing not merely about him/herself but critiquing or complaining about a social institution as in Dear Mr. Fanelli, but also the 'death of the author' which makes readers play an active role when reading poetry to give their very own meaning to the poem, as happened with the various interpretations in the two poems by Bernadette Mayer.

Conclusion:
To conclude, this reading group experiment was extremely satisfactory since members could easily read and discuss different poems by two of the most renowned Language Poets to date with a certain level of depth and criticism that showed an understanding of the language present in the poetry which could have been a barrier in a reading group with a lower level or more heterogeneous participants, but this was not the case. Most importantly, the objectives of these sessions were met, that is, members of the reading group were able to enjoy the act of reading and writing poetry and to express their ideas and opinions freely, reacting towards the written word and being able to justify their comments with the poem they were discussing. As both a member and the organiser/mediator of the reading group, I was pleased to see the results achieved in the collaborative writing tasks since these were people who had never written anything artistic in their lives, let alone poetry. Therefore, the choice of poems to then take as templates for their own poetry was a correct one.
In the future, I think it would be interesting to work with other forms of experimental poetry so that we advance in this subset of poetry that attracted that reading group so much. I believe working with visual poetry would be the next most sensible thing to do, especially since it came up in the session where we brainstormed about 'experimental poetry', which shows that some of the members of the reading group already have visual poetry in their minds and ignoring this, both as a teacher and, in this case, a moderator of a reading group would make me negligent towards the participants' needs.






























Works Cited
Colorin Colorado: Writing Poetry with English Language Learners. February 5th, 2015.
Dworkin, Craig. Entry for The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poetry. Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2005.
Language is a Virus: 66 Experiments by Charles Bernstein. December 18th, 2015.
Poetry Foundation: Reader-Response theory. February 5th, 2015.
Poets.Org: The Politics of Meter: on Traditional Forms. February 5th, 2015.
Rorty, Richard. Contingency, Irony, Solidarity. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Writing UPENN: Bernadette Mayer's list of journal ideas and writing experiments. December 18th, 2015.

Additional Bibliography
"A Conversation with Bernadette Mayer." Interview by Kate Schapira and Deborah Poe. Denver Quarterly. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Feb. 2015. .
Bauman, Zygmunt. Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity, 2000.
"Poetry as a Process of Thinking. An Interview with Charles Bernstein." Interview by Manuel Brito. DSpace. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Feb. 2015. .
Torres, Rui. Digital Poetry and Collaborative 'Wreadings' of Literary Texts. February 9th, 2015.







Annex 1: Poems by Bernstein and Mayer
Charles Bernstein:

Dear Mr. Fanelli
I saw your picture
in the 79th street
station. You said
you'd be interested
in any comments I
might have on the
condition of the
station Mr. Fanelli,
there is a lot of
debris in the 79th street
station that makes it
unpleasant to wait in
for more than a few
minutes. The station
could use a paint
job and maybe
new speakers so you
could understand
the delay announcements
that are always being
broadcast. Mr.
Fanelli—there are
a lot of people sleeping
in the 79th street station
& it makes me sad
to think they have no
home to go to. Mr.
Fanelli, do you think
you could find a more
comfortable place for them
to rest? It's pretty noisy
in the subway, especially
all those express trains
hurtling through every
few minutes, anyway when the
trains are in service.
I have to admit, Mr. Fanelli, I
think the 79th street station's
in pretty bad shape
& sometimes at night
as I toss in my bed
I think the world's
not doing too good
either, & I
wonder what's going
to happen, where we're
headed, if we're
headed anywhere, if
we even have heads. Mr.
Fanelli, do you think if
we could just start
with the 79th street
station & do what
we could with that
then maybe we could,
you know, I guess, move
on from there? Mr.
Fanelli, when I saw your
picture & the sign
asking for suggestions
I thought, if
you really wanted to
get to the bottom
of what's wrong then
maybe it was my job
to write to you: Maybe
you've never been inside
the 79th street station
because you're so busy
managing the 72nd street
& 66th street stations,
maybe you don't know
the problems we have
at 79th—I mean the
dirt & frequent
delays & the feeling of
total misery that
pervades the place. Mr.
Fanelli, are you reading
this far in the letter
or do you get so
many letters every day
that you don't have
time to give each
one the close attention
it desires? Or am I
the only person who's
taken up your invitation
to get in touch &
you just don't have enough
experience to know how to
respond? I'm sorry
I can't get your attention
Mr. Fanelli because I really
believe if you ask
for comments then you
ought to be willing
to act on them—even
if ought is too
big a word to throw
around at this point.
Mr. Fanelli
I hope you won't
think I'm rude
if I ask you a
personal question. Do
you get out of the
office much?
Do you go to the movies
or do you prefer
sports—or maybe
quiet evenings at a
local restaurant? Do
you read much, Mr. Fanelli?
I don't mean just
Gibbons and like
that, but philosophy—
have you read much
Hanna Arendt or
do you prefer
a more ideological
perspective?
I think if I understood
where you are coming from,
Mr. Fanelli, I could
write to you more cogently,
more persuasively. Mr.
Fanelli, do you get out
of the city at all—I
mean like up to Bear
Mountain or out to
Montauk? I mean do you
notice how unpleasant
the air is in the 79th
street station—that we
could use some cooling
or air-filtering system
down there? Mr.
Fanelli, do you think
it's possible we
could get together
and talk about
these things in
person? There are
a few other points
I'd like to go over
with you if I could
get the chance. Things
I'd like to talk to
you about but that
I'd be reluctant to
put down on paper.
Mr. Fanelli, I haven't
been feeling very good
lately and I thought
meeting with you face
to face might change
my mood, might put
me into a new frame
of mind. Maybe we
could have lunch?
Or maybe after work?
Think about it, Mr.
Fanelli.

Self Help

Home team suffers string of losses.—Time to change loyalties.

Quadruple bypass.—Hold the bacon on that next cheeseburger.

Poems tanking.—After stormiest days, sun comes out from behind clouds, or used to.

Marriage on rocks.—Nothing like Coke.

Election going the wrong direction.—Kick off slippers, take deep breathe, be here now.

Boss says your performance needs boost.—A long hot bath smoothes wrinkles.

War toll tops 100,000.—Get your mind off it, switch to reality TV.

Lake Tang Woo Chin Chicken with Lobster and Sweet Clam Sauce still not served and everyone else got their orders twenty minutes back.—Savor the water, feast on the company.

Subway floods and late for audition.—Start being the author of your own performance. Take a walk.

Slip on ice, break arm.—In moments like this, the preciousness of life reveals itself.

Wages down in non-union shop.—You're a sales associate, not a worker; so proud to be part of the company.

Miss the train?—Great chance to explore the station!

Suicide bombers wrecks neighborhood.—Time to pitch in!

Nothing doing.—Take a break!

Partner in life finds another partner.—Now you can begin the journey of life anew.

Bald?—Finally, you can touch the sky with the top of your head.

Short-term recall shot.—Old memories are sweetest.

Hard drive crashes and novel not backed up.—Nothing like a fresh start.

Severe stomach cramps all morning.—Boy are these back issues of Field and Streamengrossing.

Hurricane crushes house.—You never seemed so resilient.

Brother-in-law completes second year in coma.—He seems so muchmore relaxed than he used to.

$75 ticket for Sunday meter violation on an empty street in residential neighborhood.—The city needs the money to make us safe and educate our kids.

Missed last episode of favorite murder mystery because you misprogrammed VCR.—Write your own ending!

Blue cashmere pullover has three big moth holes.—What a great looking shirt!

Son joins skinhead brigade of Jews for Jesus.—At least he's following his bliss.

Your new play receives scathing reviews and closes after a single night.—What a glorious performance!

Pungent stench of homeless man on subway, asking for food.—Such kindness in his eyes, as I turn toward home.

Retirement savings lost on Enron and WorldCom.—They almost rhyme.

Oil spill kills seals.—The workings of the Lord are inscrutable.

Global warming swamps land masses.—Learn to accept change.

Bike going fast in wrong direction knocks you over.—A few weeks off your feet, just what the doctor ordered.

AIDS ravaging Africa.—Wasn't Jeffrey Wright fabulous in Angels in America?

Muffler shot.—There's this great pizza place next to the shop.

Income gap becomes crater.—Good motivation to get rich.

Abu Ghraib prisoners tortured.—Let's face it, shit happens.

Oscar wins Emmy.—Award shows are da bomb.

FBI checking your library check-outs.—I also recommend books on Amazon.

Gay marriages annulled.—Who needs the state to sanctify our love?

President's lies kill GIs.—He's so decisive about his core values.

Self-Help.—Other drowns.

Bernadette Mayer:

Failures in Infinitives
why am i doing this? Failure
to keep my work in order so as
to be able to find things
to paint the house
to earn enough money to live on
to reorganize the house so as
to be able to paint the house &
to be able to find things and
earn enough money so as
to be able to put books together
to publish works and books
to have time
to answer mail & phone calls
to wash the windows
to make the kitchen better to work in
to have the money to buy a simple radio
to listen to while working in the kitchen
to know enough to do grownups work in the world
to transcend my attitude
to an enforced poverty
to be able to expect my checks
to arrive on time in the mail
to not always expect that they will not
to forget my mother's attitudes on humility or
to continue
to assume them without suffering
to forget how my mother taunted my father
about money, my sister about i cant say it
failure to forget mother and father enough
to be older, to forget them
to forget my obsessive uncle
to remember them some other way
to remember their bigotry accurately
to cease to dream about lions which always is
to dream about them, I put my hand in the lion's mouth
to assuage its anger, this is not a failure
to notice that's how they were; failure
to repot the plants
to be neat
to create & maintain clear surfaces
to let a couch or a chair be a place for sitting down
and not a table
to let a table be a place for eating & not a desk
to listen to more popular music
to learn the lyrics
to not need money so as
to be able to write all the time
to not have to pay rent, con ed or telephone bills
to forget parents' and uncle's early deaths so as
to be free of expecting care; failure
to love objects
to find them valuable in any way; failure
to preserve objects
to buy them and
to now let them fall by the wayside; failure
to think of poems as objects
to think of the body as an object; failure
to believe; failure
to know nothing; failure
to know everything; failure
to remember how to spell failure; failure
to believe the dictionary & that there is anything
to teach; failure
to teach properly; failure
to believe in teaching
to just think that everybody knows everything
which is not my failure; I know everyone does; failure
to see not everyone believes this knowing and
to think we cannot last till the success of knowing
to wash all the dishes only takes ten minutes
to write a thousand poems in an hour
to do an epic, open the unwashed window
to let in you know who and
to spirit thoughts and poems away from concerns
to just let us know, we will
to paint your ceilings & walls for free


We Eat Out Together
My heart is a fancy place
Where giant reddish-purple cauliflowers
& white ones in French & English are outside
Waiting to welcome you to a boat
Over the low black river for a big dinner
There's a lot of choice among the foods
Even a tortured lamb served in pieces
En croute on a plate so hot as a rack
Of clouds blown over the cold filthy river
We are entitled to see anytime while we
Use the tablecovers to love each other
Publicly dishing out imitative luxuries
To show off poetry's extreme generosity
Then home in the heart of a big limousine




































Annex 2: A Selection of poems written by the members of the reading group as part of Bernstein and Mayer's writing experiments.

Complicated
.myself as complicated as someone
from expect to lot a and
say to lot a is that and
times the of most myself like I is
know I thing only the
? case the were it if I would but
them with agree not do honestly I
say people
complicated extremely am I for
backwards is me read to way only the

13=13
I very much needed to get back.
Can you do your ears, Jimmy? Are you sure?
The battle was short.
Had no contact with her brother Eddie.
He sniffed and sniffed, like a bloodhound.
No doubt Carole had considered this, in her reckoning.
You do have reasons to be happy.
Due to this hectic pace of living.
I've just started the adventure of changing my train of thought.
She was quite pleased to find that there was a real one.
Remember that you owe everyhting to me.
And there he lay a long while, senseless.
Lamb to the slaughter.

A Conversation
And
what's the use of a book
with no pictures
or dialogue?
-blank-
If you cut your finger
with a kitchen knife
it will surely
bleed.
Fall, fall, fall
down the rabbit hole.
Covered in shelves
and bookcases
and Victorian paintings.
Eat bats
Eat cats
Beat ats
Ceat ats.
If you cut your finger
with a kitchen knife
it will surely
bleed.
Fall, fall, fall
down the rabbit hole.
Nine inches high,
grab the keys
and hide.
We will
never
speak again!,
said the Mouse.
Orders were clear,
stop crying
at once!
Nine inches high,
grab the keys
and hide.
Distance
is key.
I wonder whether I'm falling
upwards
or downwards.
Eat bats
Eat cats
Beat ats
Ceat ats.
Rabbit:
How could I?
How could I
do that?
-blank-
And
what's the use of a book
with no pictures
or dialogue?
Nine inches high,
grab the keys
and hide.
Distance
is key.
I wonder whether I'm falling
upwards
or downwards.