Exquisite!

So you just got the new keep writing in the mail and you’re all, what’s this? Poetry? I did not sign up for poetry.

But then you read it because, why not, it’s there, and the handwriting looks comfortable, like a friend wrote it, and you’re like, ok ok, this isn’t bad.

And then it hits you.

Hi.

I asked my long time friend and writer Brian Mattarochia to participate in an extra experimental Keep Writing. He agreed to write the first 3-10 lines of a poem based on a title I gave him.* Brian and I used to attend weekly poetry readings together in Seattle in the late 90’s. He brought me to my first and only “Lowell Celebrates Kerouac” festival in 1994 where we saw Allen Ginsberg and then participated in a discussion that became part of a documentary called “The Source”**

NOW WHAT you ask? It’s your turn. Tell me the next line of the poem. Mail it to me by December 15. I will choose one and send it to the next writer. I’m not going to tell you who that is. You’ll see. She’s great. Trust me. Her book is on my nightstand now.

And then…we will repeat the process. Until 4 writers plus you plus my title will create a poem, exquisite corpse style, building on one small part of what was already created.

Sound like fun? I thought so. I hope it works.

This is Keep Writing number 127 sent at the end of November 2019, as I prepare to fly to NH for my first Thanksgiving in my home state since…I dunno, since my high school friends would still pick me up at my mom’s house after dinner?

* I told him to interpret the title as he liked—its something I’ve been thinking about lately, about collaboration—WE CREATE NOTHING ALONE—I did not give him any other direction except that I asked he write it in his own handwriting.

**You can find it on YouTube but I’ve included a still of 17 year old Hope for you.