Exquisite Corpse

I ran a game of Exquisite Corpse at the Contact Theatre yesterday as part of the Playeverything unconference. Named for a line that came from the first time it was played, by its creators, the Surrealists, "the exquisite corpse will drink the new wine", it's a version of the game you may have played as a kid, "consequences", where you write something down then pass it on, so that people can't see what you've written. Exquisite Corpse is a way to generate unexpected poetry. Although there were only three of us, we produced eight six line poems which were surprising, funny, and poignant. It was part of a session I was giving about experimental poetry, and so we did a version of the game where we took found lines from different pages of the same publication - but it can just as easily be created from scratch.

On Monday, I'll be speaking at Madlab at Interesting Monday, about the OuLiPo, and I think rather than just listen to me droning on, we'll play a game or two. All are welcome.