The Liberating Tyranny of the Writing Exercise

People ask me how I get past the logical gatekeeper in my brain--the part that insists on making sense and following a narrative. I really don't know how this works but I find that creating a set of formal constraints sometimes liberates me. Writing that uses a lot of repetition, for example, or not allowing yourself to write in complete sentences. Here's an exercise I used last weekend to torture myself and some friends. Pick a letter, any letter of the alphabet, but for your own sanity pick one that is used in lots of words: a vowel, an S, T, H, C, L, for example. 

Now write a poem in which EVERY WORD contains the letter you've chosen. Remember, you don't have to make sense. You will, whether you realize it or not, make a certain kind of sense, the story will lie beneath your words, the connections are in your wiring, like it or not.

Here's the one I wrote last weekend--unretouched. I know you can do better than this!

M

Mother maintains multitudes imminent immanent
meager my ambling morose
amphora, amber, monkey temple
plum flaming lamp perfume
mention my name
margaret's home Monday, monstrous mating
mother's meat, mother manages time, recommending
camera becoming, mauve helmeted women
mud matters, something named
screaming. More mentioning my name, marine
maneuvers.

And here's the link of the week: www.languageisavirus.com