glengarry renglosa 3

His own dwindling legs
carried him into a Toronto bar,
then he paid for another’s, and what’s between

now and then slipped away
like cherries sucked between her lips.

But scribble that all away. Once the barley
has curdled a neuron or two don’t trust
your observations and forget about writing the next line.

The form’s extinct-- for that matter, so’s the artist.
Either Rodney or Elliott is going to drive.

line one from Robert Creeley “Self-Portrait”
line ten from CWH



The renglosa form is a hybrid of several elements: The renga, which is a kind of group meditation form where, in this case, four writers take turns writing sequences of two or three lines using only the last writer's preceding line as a starting point... a variation on the exquisite corpse form surrealists worked with. Our particular spin was the genetic splicing of the renga with the glosa, which uses lines from other works as a beginning point (and in our variation an ending point as well). The final element was a kind of alcohol induced euphoria as we toiled away in one of our favourite bars. The sources quoted are referred to at the end of each renglosa; CWH is, in fact, the Canadian Writer's Handbook. Enjoy.


Connected areas:
Paul Dechene: There is no... Eric Hill: Cling
Andy Weaver: A Little Love Poem Steve McOrmond: Coffee Table
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Last update: 1997/04/27