I've seen quite a few collaborations in the blowfish slush pile. While I like the idea of a collaboration, the majority of what I've read was not interesting. Mostly uninteresting syntax. I'm not quite sure how those collaborations were done, but structurally, they look a bit like this:

Poet #1 Subject1 verb1 object1 period
Poet #2 Subject2 verb2 object2 period
Poet #1 Subject3 verb3 object3 hypo/paratactic proposition1 period
Poet #2 Subject4 verb4 object 4 period
(...)
Poet #n+1 Subjectn+1 verb n+1 objectn+1

It seems a bit unfair to point out André Breton's collaborations with Philippe Soupault and/or Paul Eluard, or Michael Palmer with Norma Cole (reprinted in Saints of Hysteria, but at least every line and/or sentence was different on a structural level from the preceding one.

Comments

( t.a. noonan ) said…
I've been working on a collaboration, and it looks nothing like that. Huzzah.

Need to send y'all some work. After finals, I promise.
Amish Trivedi said…
Is this you killing our now-forgotten collab "project"?

Might be for the best.

Let's collaborate on an opera.
François Luong said…
Tiffany: Looking forward to your submission.

Amish: Not necessarily. I was just writing about the collaborations I've received for blowfish. For all that matters, I'm too drunk on syntax (well, that's what Tony would say) to let such impoverished structure stand.

Popular Posts