Take a piece of prose you’ve written this unit and scramble its style/structure into an alternative new form
12 thoughts on “Experimental Prose”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
ENG125 – Colloquium: Introduction to Creative Writing
Smith College Project
Take a piece of prose you’ve written this unit and scramble its style/structure into an alternative new form
You must be logged in to post a comment.
A conversation of between two ages start
Enter the young one
“I can’t wait to grow up, because I want to know the person that I will become” says the wild eyed girl. In her dishevelment , she maintains a harmonious air.
A blade cuts through the calm – an old decayed thing slither in between the shadows. In the light a transformation begins
Enter the old one
She is not wise like an old woman but rather an in between being. Their eyes are the same cockroach color but hers are surrounded by chasms.
The old grasps the head of her younger self as if to take her inside her body. The harmony shivers – startled by her cold hands. Their embraces distorts their fragile existence outside of time
FLASH!
A hard conversation, one of many. You shrivel under your parents eyes. Their little girl – their glistening beacon in a new world is becoming tainted and faint. You will have many of these conversations – where love will suffocate you . You will need a different kind of love & real understanding. They are from a different generation after all – You can’t really talk to them anymore
FLASH!
This incident will stick out in your mind – where your light almost flickered out of existence. The pain will settle into shame — How could you have been so weak?
FLASH!
In your four corner world, safe but alone you will spend many sunny days. Books will be your escape. So hard you try to keep your inner self hidden, it will all eventually come to light. One day your skin will sizzle under the sun and produce that strange buttery smell. The seeds are planted. It would be a long time before they break through the soil
FLASH !
You were never very patient to wait for things to change. So everyday life becomes a frustrating existence. In this period people will come into your life – all gathering forces to break the wall of your room before it goes underground. A girl you once knew from whispers as evil incarnate will become your friend – and will break your first wall.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
BOOM!
The two entities tear apart. The little one steps back in fear.
The other just gather herself quietly
“ I didn’t want to lie to you. I just love it so much for that. I can’t keep you safe. I just hope that in all of this, you will know there is light at the end of every tunnel as corny as it sounds”
The little girl has no words yet she knows this moment will always remains with her for a long time
You and him are no longer
he walked away
see his dark side
it is a spiritual connection
he will come back as a friend
there’s more to experience
you must heal right now
protect your energy
there are opportunities to use your gifts
maintain your ambition
learn to be selfish
there’s a new phase ahead
First of all- everything will turn out okay.
Whatever feels like it means the world in this very moment really isn’t.
I’m not sure what age you are right now or what phase you are entering-
whether you are obsessed with the Hunger Games
or trying to learn how to apply mascara or getting your first period.
Things will be dramatic for a while,
but this will go away and your life will get pretty boring- until it isn’t.
Just know that whatever you are insecure about at the moment,
you will soon learn to love yourself.
And for the love of God-
please STOP straightening your hair.
It will take twenty plus years but you will learn how to manage it.
Despite the Garnier Fructis bottle, your hair is not frizzy, dry and unmanageable-
you just aren’t using the right products.
The Curly Girl Method probably doesn’t exist yet, but try using OGX.
No matter what you think at this moment, know that you are intelligent and strong.
You will encounter things that feel like they will destroy you-
but you will conquer them and live to tell the tale.
You will get into college and graduate five years later-
a world scale event happens that will change this from four to five years.
I can’t spoil anything else, because I don’t want to ruin any surprises or get too ahead of myself. After all, I don’t want you to change our future.
Just know that I love you and plenty of other people do too.
Keep doing everything you are doing exactly how you are doing it.
You become a pretty kick ass woman.
Sincerely, Big You
Painting a still life is a process of capturing what man has made, memorializing it with your brush, without man’s presence. In front of me I face the subject matter that will become my painting. I see a green Stanley cup. Still lifes primarily depict inanimate subject matter, today’s work is no exception. But the Stanley cup is green. It’s green, like our eyes. The cup stands alone, its contents unknown to me. My final piece will have no need to suggest anything besides the outward appearance of the cup. But the Stanley cup is green, and I wonder if its contents are warm. They may be warm, warm like the hot coffee you drink each morning. Warm, like you. Warm, like your neck which I clung to as a child. I finish my painting. The Stanley cup is green and its contents unseen, but warm. My painted still life is not so still at all.
Grocery list:
Kale
Oil
Salt
Paper plates
Something to clean the counters – all purpose spray?
Something to clean the windows
Something to clean ourselves
Plants
Spray bottles
Pots
Dirt
Ask a worker what else someone needs to care for plants
Black pants
Black shirt
Black jacket
Black hair dye
Ask how to remove a stripped nail
Ask how to fix something that is broken
New picture frames
New pictures
Beer
Letter to childhood self scrambled into postcards
Postcards to a little heart:
You didn’t want to go.
How will you wear heartbreak?
You know who makes up your world.
You left them.
You never left them behind.
You had hope in soulmates.
Souls don’t have fixed endings.
Let go, sometimes.
It must’ve been July by now and I was home for the summer after quitting my job at a teen camp in Massachusetts but that’s not what this story is about. Here’s the thing, Key’s doesn’t drive. So I drive fifty minutes to Bethel Maine from my house in Bridgton every time we want to hang out. We love going on long car rides together. That’s where that photo came from. Keys and I have been friends since our sophomore year of high school. We were both born and raised in Maine. All we needed then was time to spend together. That’s what summers are for. To go and do what we like and they were finally our own. “Finally,” I thought.
Recipe for a Teenage Girl’s Room
4 posters, stick these to the walls with nails even though your family doesn’t own the apartment; we aren’t sure if this is allowed, just do it anyways.
1 green shag rug, for extra comfort pair with a pile of books scattered across it, some you’ve read, some you intend to read, some you’ll never read.
1 record player with added vinyls, you won’t use it often, the trend just came back and it is nice to have, the music feels nicer on the vinyl. Occasionally you’ll turn it on and blast it as loud as you can to make the world go quiet. It’ll work for a little.
1 Roku TV, it has to always be on or the recipe won’t come out right. You can’t focus without it, the sound of the voices in shows makes you feel less alone.
4 pillows, this is the right number of pillows, any less would be vulgar, and any more would be suffocating.
A handful of empty wrappers and empty food containers, it’s getting bad again. You aren’t sure it has ever been good. Sometimes, more often than not, eating in bed feels good, and not leaving your room feels good. At least better than forcing yourself out of bed feels.
3 blankets, please fold with care. These keep in the warmth, and shield from the outside world. Not just a blanket, more so a second layer of skin.
A dash of stray Zoloft pills, do not forget these. These are special selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and without them, all will fail. There will be no results, there will be no you. Every morning, like clockwork.
4 cinnamon spiced vanilla candles from Bath and Body Works 3 of which are missing, don’t worry this is part of the recipe. He is not your child you did not give birth to him yet the responsibility of him falls on you. You have all the good stuff because you pay for it yourself, so he comes in and takes it. It is just a few candles, but they were your favorite candles. You let it go though.
A small dog, she gets you the way people don’t. Maybe she doesn’t, but she lays with you.
Mix well, and enjoy.
A vein pops on his forehead. Rough arms around her torso lifting her off the ground over his head. A thud and a crash as her body crumples to the floor. A noise of suprise from where you’re watching, wide-eyed, a three-year-old learning the meaning of heartbreak from behind the kitchen counter. Hurried apologies spilling from his mouth and silent tears running down her broken face. It happened once, she tells me so many years later. Just once. He’s not a violent person, she insists, eyes watery as she holds my hand tight. I don’t doubt it; my grandfather is one of the most gentle people I know. But my grandmother is one of the strongest, and her shaking voice and wet eyelashes as she whispers to me in the living room, voice low so my little sister doesn’t hear, are unfamiliar and terrible. I know you want me to know him, but I can feel the love I have for your father dim a little in my heart like an ancient lightbulb about to burn out.
Silent since October 25. I seem to be the only person concerned. I pass through the dining hall every day. October 25, September 20, September 18, May 22, May 8, April 19, March 8. My friends and I would notify each other over text, rotated out with pepperoni or some plant-based substitute on a regular basis. Prior to October 25, I live in Chapin. I beg at the food bar, pester my connections in dining to no avail. It is no more.
There is no doubt the OSCAR was deserved. By the end, there are always tears. Every single scene is perfectly crafted to bring awareness to the notoriously underrepresented. Bundled under blankets, I soaked in every song, sign, word. I remember this family movie night vividly.
The dynamic between the disabled and the non-disabled is tricky, but CODA encapsulates the beauty that can arise from these challenges. Ruby is a hearing daughter in a deaf family. I am a disabled member of an able-bodied family. Though I am not deaf, I saw disabled characters put in the spotlight like never before. Everyone wants to see themselves in the characters depicted on the big screen. Watching CODA is the closest I have even been to feeling that way. So few movies represent the disabled community, yet this one did. Masterfully. Representation matters. CODA is a beautiful work of art, my favorite film. A deaf family. A hearing daughter, who sings.
Flash on 1 Subject Scrambled: Headlines with descriptions that could be from that article/post
10 New Grumpy-Sunshine Romances That You Won’t Want to Miss!
When I log into my Goodreads account, the first thing I always look for is a new post from someone I follow. The second is checking on my reading goal.
What Authors Are Reading This June: The Good, The Sad, And The Unexpected!
Reading is an enlightening pastime, whether that’s consuming a renowned tome or the most derivative a genre has to offer.
A Hundred and One Classics: How Cultured is Your Reading Taste?
Now, anyone can share a glimpse of their inner world, and likewise, can access the distilled infinity of human thought, via the Internet.
Quiz: We pick your next favorite based on the covers you can’t resist!
Reading as a hobby is also a potential market.
Opinion Piece: Books the Next “Fast-Fashion” and TikTok the Downfall of Culture.
While there is an inherent upside (everyone should have access to the literature they love, and should be able to buy a copy of those books, not just the uber wealthy), it is nevertheless overshadowed by the effect of people buying books simply because the marketing was intense enough, only to realize that it wasn’t what that specific person was actually looking for, and now they have a piece of media displayed on their shelf that they didn’t even like, or chucked into an ever expanding bargain bin.
The 10 Most Banned Books Across the US in the Past Decade.
This is even less excusable when we consider that this is the only time in history where one can access a book without having a physical copy, and, specifically in the US, when we are in a time of libraries, beacons of accessibility, being underfunded and threatened by mobs that tout their censorship as a means of morality, and not what it really is, which is an attempt to spread their own ignorance which can’t be spread as effectively with this access to diverse critical thought and art.
BIG DEALS! BEST SELLERS FOR LESS THAN A DOLLAR! DIRT CHEAP, EXCELLENT CONDITION, SIGN UP NOW FOR 30% OFF!
I am only so critical because I recognize the problem within myself.
Fifty Short Books to Finish Your Yearly Reading Goal! (Less than 200 Pages)!
Readers should buy physical copies of the books they know they like and splurge every once in a while on a book they only think they’ll like.
The Influencers You Should Know Based on Your Last Five Star: From Romantasy to Memoir to Classics.
Those pillars of reviews that grow discussion, that can only make a livelihood out of marketing books to the masses.
Opinion: The Future of Reading: Where Do We Go From Here? The Youth Killing Literacy? The Elderly Censoring Art? World On Fire, No Extinguisher in Sight.
Some of them already do that. But most I’ve seen are mostly book collectors. Just search “book haul” on Youtube. There’s no end to the content to be profited off of. That’s a leak in the boat I don’t think can be plugged, if it’s even moral to do so.