by Sara Schupack
This is how to do it:
1) Make piles of index cards, one stack for each part of speech, including nouns, verbs, adjectives and
¡@adverbs. (A different color for each stack helps.)
2) Write one word (the right part of speech) on each card, a powerful, specific, nitty gritty or funky example.
3) Arrange the stacks of cards in and order which matches a sentence pattern, with the word facing down.
¡@ You have several choices her, for example: adj. + noun + verb + adv., or adj. + noun + adv. +verb + adv. ¡@+verb. Experiment. Try different combinations.
4) Randomly draw one card from each stack. You may not look at a card first and reject it.
5) Form a sentence. You may add an article ('a' or 'the') when needed, or the word 'and'. This is how we got
¡@ sentences such as "A dead nun announced presumptuously and murdered beautifully" and "Death,
¡@ chubby and fresh, sweeps mercilessly and darkly" which you will find in some of the following works.
6) Create around ten sentences using different patterns, so that you have a good selection.
7) Choose one or two of your favorites, and build a poem or prose piece around it, adding images,
¡@ developing ideas, but not making any changes to the original sentence(s).
Try it at home. Fun for the entire family. (Assembly required)
by Carlyn Rose Tan
In the underground world,
Life is scorned and Death is welcomed.
Halloween!
A parade is being held
Everybody, from young ghoules to old ghosts,
From new comers to those who've been there since the day they were born,
Cheered, as,
The highly honored, Death, chubby and fresh, swept mercilessly, darkly
On a rotting float, with a half skinless corpse driving.
His Honor in this best coal-black cloak,
Holding His newly made decaying scythe.
Waving and smiling, showing his yellow teeth that had
Worms and sings crawing.
Everybody booed as
Infamous life danced apathetically and giggled belligerently
On it's polished, shinning white, variant float.
Wearing a bright golden cloth.
Crisply, idiosyncratic music, mumbled and skittered,
From green, moldy speakers that hung above.
It was by the Dead Boyz!!
Teenage ghouls become wild with excitement and
Danced.
A dead num announced presumptuously and murdered beautifully.
Her poolde, voracious and flat, howled curiously, steathily
It was a joyous day in the underground world
By Christine Teng
The laziness gradually weighing down my eyelids.
The grass swaying around me
Me, alone in the sea of solid sunshine.
The apple tree stopping as if tired, yet happy
Eagles gliding above in the sky
The sky, clear like a blue crystal
The grass tickling my nose
The drum sound started
Distant happiness floated to my ears
Bugs, once inactive, came alive
Jumping and weaving, going along with the music
Toads, joining in the chorus
Sun, engulfing everything in warmth
¡@Happy, yet drowsy
¡@¡@ Merry, yet lethargic
¡@¡@¡@ Joyful, yet weary
¡@¡@¡@¡@ Content
By Daphane Su
If mirthful and fat hatred beams,
Then hatred is a demon's lips, it seems.
Corpulent and juicy like a swollen slug,
It hangs from his skin, mocking and smug.
The demon spawns some lively offspring,
Even as they do their chores, they are wicked and bedeviling,
Death, chubby and fresh, sweeps mercilessly and darkly, beneath fat windows
that shine daringly and destroy sweetly.
A dead nun announces presumptuously and murders beautifully,
Now a wild ravaged spirit of the underworld.
Inveigling Love slithers harshly,
Gratingly flawed to the eyes of those who are not blind,
But seductive, a tricky anake with graceful curves,
Whispering across the molded cobblestones of Hell,
A gem set against the murky waters of a dark, deep well
In the word of the dead,
The felicitous sum lies quickly For to the human mind it tells,
Of glory, light, and mercy.
But its superficial promises quickly fade
As tumors grow and burial plots are laid.
Down there, also, infamous life dances apathetically
And giggles belligerently,
Swaying and writing with it's partner Irony,
To the crisply idiosyncratic music mumbling and skittering
In a distance
It is here, as they turn and twist,
To the sound of dripping tears and in the overbearing mist,
It is in this horrible Love-slithered pit
That Life's deceiving mask is stripped from it.
By Jennifer Chu
¡@"No!" the middle-aged woman wailed as her son's hand slipped away from her
grip. His eyelids covered his empty eyes, as his frail body lay on the bed,
motionless.
¡@ "I'm very sorry, Madame," the doctor said with a peaceful look on his face.
"I'm afraid that I couldn't help your son. This disease last occurred to the
people in Europe over a hundred years ago, in the last 1700. I'm very sorry
this had to happen to a member of your family."
¡@ Sobbing quietly to herself, she fought back her tears and nodded. "Thank you
anyway." Ever since the death of the eldest boy, they left him untouched on
the bed. Finally, three days later, his funeral was held. The family wasn't
willing to let go until the coffin was set into the earth. Although the dead
boy was still constantly on their minds, they still had to get on with their
daily routines. Day by day, the wound the boy had left in the family's heart
began to heal. However, an unexpected thing happened to the family. They all
became very weak. As time went on, they all began to get nauseated, and sometimes
they had chills. The family became more languid because everything that they
ate was thrown up. What was even more frightening was that these were the exact
symptoms the boy had before.
¡@ Receiving information about the ill family, many helpful neighbors rushed
over to help them. However, they could not help the family as they became more
fragile everyday and finally passed away. A few days later, these neighbors,
too, seemed to have caught the disease and went through the same experience
as the family and the boy. Death, chubby and fresh, swept mercilessly and darkly.
¡@ Soon everyone in the little town caught the deadly disease, which would not
spare any on life. The town became very devastated with dusty gray houses and
dying gardens.
¡@ There was no life in this town. Luckily, this town is quite an isolated place,
so this destructive plague did not spread to other places. Yet, the epidemic
left the place nothing but a ghost town.