For their experiments, writers use two basic types of imitation: scaffolding (writing between the lines) and fill-in-the-blank (like Mad Libs). Each one allows your front brain, your thinking/planning/knowing mind, to step aside so that the back of your mind, the creative part, dormant for much of daily life, can come forward and play. Gaps, leaps, nonsense, surprise, discomfort, weirdness—all these are welcome aspects of imitation. Remember: This is for practice, not necessarily for publication. You are learning new dance steps to increase the range of what you can do. Scaffolding: Writing between the Lines Scaffolding is the use of another writer’s text, line by line, to create your own piece. Call to mind a building under construction. You know the system of platforms constructed around the building site, as the new floors are built? That’s scaffolding, and scaffolding is the function of the text we use to launch our imitations. Then, when the new piece is completed, the scaffolding is removed. The building stands. We forget all about the scaffolds. The original text provides the inspiration and supports the new work. When you imitate in this way, don’t worry about fitting everything together or making absolute sense. You are after a sense of play. It might feel awkward. But it can be fun, like when you were a kid, and you danced standing on someone else’s feet. Scaffolding a Poem. Choose a poem you enjoy but perhaps do not completely “get.” Copy the poem on a sheet of paper, skipping three blank lines in between each line of the poem. That’s your scaffold. You will build your own poem in between the existing lines, the supports. Here’s an example of how the technique works, using a poem by Bob Hicok. (The poem “A Primer” appears in its original form on p.75.) Imitating Bob Hicok A Primer I remember Michigan fondly as the place I go I remember _________ ___________as the place I go (your home town, state, or place of significance) (adverb) to be in Michigan. The right hand of America to be in _________. The ___________ __________ of America (repeat place name) (locate your place with a body part) waving from maps or the left _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ (six words to describe your place as though it’s alive) pressing into clay a mold to take home ______________________________ (another image for how your place looks—comparison that spills onto next line) from kindergarten to Mother. I lived in Michigan __________ ___________. I lived in _____________ (conclude physical comparison of your place) (your place name) forty-three years. The state bird _________. The ____________ bird (how long you lived there) (repeat your place name or synonym) is a chained factory gate. The state flower is a ______________. The state flower (a surprising leap: compare your place to a symbol for something negative about your place) is Lake Superior, which sounds egotistical __________________ which sounds ______________ (fill in the blank with something that isn’t a flower, but names a specific aspect of the place that is positive, and then make a sarcastic comment) though it is merely cold and deep as truth. though it is merely cold and ____________ as ____________. (fill in blanks with surprising leaps) A Midwesterner can use the word “truth,” A _____________ -er can use the word _______________, (Using a term that describes the people from your place, Kansans, or Dutch-ers, fill in the second blank by repeating the last word from the line above.) can sincerely use the word “sincere.” can sincerely use the word “sincere.” (copy this line as it is) In truth the Midwest is not mid or west. In truth the ___________ is not ___________ or __________. (repeat the name of your place in blank one, and break the word into two parts: i.e., Florida becomes “Flori” or “da”) When I go back to Michigan I drive through Ohio. When I go back to ____________ I ___________ through ____________. (name your place again, and show how you get there) There is off I-75 in Ohio a mosque, so life __________________________, so life (describe the features of the landscape as you approach your place) goes corn corn corn mosque, I wave at Islam, goes _______________ _______________ _______________ _______________, I wave at _______________, (fill in with repeated words and specifics from your place) which we’re not getting along with which we’re not getting along with (repeat this line as is) on account of the Towers as I pass. on account of ___________ as I pass. (fill in source of conflict in your place) Then Ohio goes corn corn corn Then ____________ goes _____________ _____________ _____________ (fill in with the specifics from your place, repeating the words as Hicok does) Vincent Scarpa I Go Back to Berryman’s All of the streets in the trailer park are named for fruits or for dead presidents—Cherry, Lincoln, Peach, Garfield—and if you walk them and peer through windows with parted curtains, you will see love being made, hate being made, bodies being discovered, bodies being forgotten, smoking and drinking and swearing and Bible reading, you will see people doing their best, and you will see that sometimes their best is not that good, and you will see rooms where welfare mothers rock babies and sing If I needed you / would you come to me?, and you will see doublewide lawns where men like my best friend’s father try to exorcise the gay out of their sons by placing a bat in their hands and lobbing underhanded tosses when what their sons really want is to bring the stereo on the front porch and choreograph intricate and well-intentioned routines to top 40 pop, and you will see Renee apply tanning oil to her frail leather body as she sprawls across the driveway from where she has moved her dented pick-up pocked with bullet scars, you will see her repositioning her beach chair to follow the sun in a circle and rotate 20-20 front and back, her body so crisp and even in next week’s open casket, you will see sober fathers and drunk fathers and belt-bearing fathers and fathers who hide child pornography in secret folders on their computer, you will see mothers like mine knocking over patio furniture in fits of manic rage, or mothers who hang confederate flags alongside American flags, or mothers who pray for drunk drivers and who pray for terrorists and who pray for their own recovery from afflictions of the mind and heart and body and soul, mothers who erect roadside memorials across town for sons and daughters squished between liquored tires, you will see old women whose children do not call or do not call often on hold with phone psychics from whom they seek guidance and answers but also sheer company, you will see old men who think of the rifles in their closets when a black or a Puerto Rican walks by but also when they catch themselves in the mirror or have too much time to think or drink, you will see motherless children riding rusted bikes and scooters and falling on cracked pavement, their knees and elbows scuffed and skinned like the scratch-off lottery tickets their fathers allow them at the liquor store checkout, you will see teenagers who consider themselves to be much older pass loosely rolled joints in the woods, the girls flashing their tits to the guys who ask nicely or who only ask or who simply insist, guys with acne on their backs which you could connect to resemble an outline of the continental forty-eight, guys who claim they’re allergic to latex, and you will see their younger brothers and younger sisters who sneak through the woods trying to find the hiding spot, and you will hear the older siblings yell, Get outta here you retards, go home, and you will see a pool the size of a postage stamp in the middle of the park where children are taught to swim, to dive, to walk don’t run walk don’t run walk don’t run, where these children compete to see who can hold their breath the longest but also to see who has the most bruises, kid fears, war stories, dead cousins, and you will see me leaving the pool despite having just arrived because I’ll never be comfortable taking my shirt off in front of anyone who isn’t a doctor, and even then, and you will see me walk back to my trailer on Lot 252, my dry towel dragging behind me like a tail that collects gravel and cigarette butts, and you will follow me into my house where my mother is having sex with her boyfriend, you will see their door close as I take off my sandals, you will see me contemplate going to the fridge—I am so thirsty—and decide against it because the kitchen is too close to my mother’s bedroom, and I don’t want to prevent her or interrupt her or make her think of me, and so instead you will see me walk into my room, where I will write in my journal on a blank page: I feel homesick but I’m writing this at home. Pamela Painter The New Year It’s late Christmas Eve at Spinelli’s when Dominic presents us, the waitstaff, with his dumb idea of a bonus—Italian hams in casings so tight they shimmer like Gilda’s gold lamé stockings. At home, Gilda’s waiting up for me with a surprise of her own: my stuff from the last three months is sitting on the stoop. Arms crossed, scarlet nails tapping the white satin sleeves of her robe, she says she’s heard about Fiona. I balance the ham on my hip and pack my things—CDs, weights, a vintage Polaroid—into garbage bags she’s provided free of charge. Then I let it all drop and offer up the ham in both hands, cradling it as if it might have been our child. She doesn’t want any explanations—or the ham. Fiona belongs to Dominic, and we are a short sad story of one night’s restaurant despair. But the story’s out and for sure I don’t want Dominic coming after my ham. Under Gilda’s unforgiving eye, I sling my garbage bags into the trunk of the car and all Christmas day I drive with the radio off except when I call Gilda from a phone booth by the side of the road. Bing Crosby and me singing “White Christmas” means nothing to her, so I head west, the ham glistening beside me in the passenger’s seat. Somewhere in Indiana I strap it into a seat belt. I stop to call again, but Gilda hangs up every time. After the next state, I send her pictures of my trip instead: The Ham under the silver arch of St. Louis; The Ham at the Grand Canyon; The Ham in Las Vegas. I’m taking a picture of The Ham in the Pacific when a big wave washes it out to sea. I send the picture anyway: The Ham in the Pacific Undertow. In this picture, you can’t tell which of us is missing.
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