Whenever I set up in public to create poetry for people on the spot as part of Piping Hot Poetry, it's always interesting to see who stops by and why. The look and sound of my old manual Olympia, while not exactly the fife of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, tends to cause a pause in the general flow of the passing scene. From curious and perplexed little kids to steampunk young adults to artists of all stripes to older adults who actually remember using a typewriter, it's enough out of the ordinary to bring out the extraordinary in other people.
This is where the fun begins... Can I take a few words of inspiration from someone, and whatever else I sense from them, then fold that in with whatever's just floating about in the environment, and blend that with what's going on within me and come up with something meaningful to them and to me, right here, right now?
It's sort of like plein air painting a type-embossed collaborative verb-dance improvised to a tune that is composing itself as I go along.
And somehow it works.
Result: You get something that wasn't there before, I get something else entirely, and we're all kinda surprised about the whole thing. And usually for me, I end up with something a little haunting, a little other-worldly that slips and slides around my subconscious for a while, that kicks off a different awareness and catalyzes my dreams and creative efforts.
This is where the fun begins... Can I take a few words of inspiration from someone, and whatever else I sense from them, then fold that in with whatever's just floating about in the environment, and blend that with what's going on within me and come up with something meaningful to them and to me, right here, right now?
It's sort of like plein air painting a type-embossed collaborative verb-dance improvised to a tune that is composing itself as I go along.
And somehow it works.
Result: You get something that wasn't there before, I get something else entirely, and we're all kinda surprised about the whole thing. And usually for me, I end up with something a little haunting, a little other-worldly that slips and slides around my subconscious for a while, that kicks off a different awareness and catalyzes my dreams and creative efforts.
RSS Feed