In our Craft Capsules series, authors reveal the personal and particular ways they approach the art of writing. This is no. 210.
I’m going to give you a writing exercise, but first, a note about bodily writing exercises, or, as the poet CAConrad calls one version of them, “somatic” writing exercises. Whimsical to the point of joyful absurdity, Conrad’s exercises engage the writer’s body in ways that aim for mindful discomfort. The goal is to get the writer in touch with unusual sensations that may have become trapped within a body conditioned by comfort and the status quo. For instance, one of Conrad’s somatic exercises involves being home alone and standing naked in a bucket of water and peering through the peephole of your front door. And then you’re supposed to whistle as you write. And you’re not supposed to write about the experience itself, but rather, from the sensations and feelings that arise. Interestingly, even the “body” of each CAConrad poem reflects this concern with soma-as-form, body-as-form: Every one of Conrad’s poems looks physically different on the page from every other poem.
My writing exercise isn’t that strange, but it may leave you with sore fingers.
I once took a printmaking class some decades ago, and the professor was a British man who had learned printmaking from some famous old master, and he told a story of his first day in the master’s calligraphy class, where they had to write the letter “O.” And they wrote the letter “O” over and over and over, until their hands got tired, and the O’s no longer looked like O’s, and by the time the bell rang at the end of the first day of class, they all wanted to drop calligraphy and take up any other trade than printmaking. But my printmaking teacher told me he learned so much that day, merely from the repetitive act of pushing his body and his concentration to their limits.
So that story got me thinking, and I came up with this exercise that I’ve done with dozens of classes over the years, and that I’ve done myself dozens of times over the years, whenever I need to jumpstart my writing and remind myself to get back inside my minded body. The exercise is designed to free the writing hand from the logical mind, and to help us write from a place that is wholly present within our bodies and within the writing space—just our bodies and our pens (or typewriters) and our pages.
This exercise takes about ten minutes total, and you’ll need a timer. (I also find that this exercise works very differently if you use a pen and a large piece of notebook paper or if you decide to type it. Definitely try it both ways!) As you start the timer, you begin writing (or typing) a single word over and over. Try “breathe.” Write “breathe” at a good, even pace, not too fast, not too slow, over and over, across the top lines of the page. And keep rendering that word, over and over, for three whole minutes. (It’s a long time! Your fingers may start to hurt.) Then, after three minutes, start writing or typing “breathe” at twice the pace, and render that word over and over for about a minute at a really fast pace. And then slow it back down, and write “breathe” for two more minutes at a good, even pace, not too fast, not too slow. Periodically while you’re writing this word, try chanting the word “breathe” at the same pace that you’re writing it. And then, finally, after six minutes or so, let your tired hand(s) start writing whatever words you want to write. But here’s the important thing: Never stop writing, and don’t slow down and don’t speed up. Write whatever you want but write it at the same clip as you were just writing “breathe.” If you get stuck, just write “breathe” again, but whatever you do, keep your pen on the page (or keep your typing fingers moving), don’t stop writing, don’t slow down, and don’t speed up.
Here’s what my body wrote—edited down for concision and space purposes—in a recent somatic writing session where I decided to type the word “glass” repeatedly. (My drinking glass happened to be next to me at my standing desk.)
glass glass glass glass glass glass glass glass glass glass glagg glass glass glass glass gllaas gllas glass glass glass glasg glasglg glass glass glassg gl glass glass glass glass glass glass glass glass glass glass glass glas. glas glass glass galss glass glass glass glas glass glass glass gasses glasses gasser aghast a glass in the grass a glass in a class a gas is not a glass a glass is not a gas? a glass is neither liquid nor solid too silently silent why so silent? what’s it saying? what are you saying, drinking glass, wordless longing tearing seating sweating wanting wanting wanting glassing glassing glass glass glass glass gllas can you sing? are you singing glass? singing wanting singing shattering singing before shattering singing singing mouthing opening mouthing wanting bady-birding
This is what my body wrote, when I freed it up from my logical mind. Within all the repeated syllables, and the misspellings, I found my fingers stumbling upon some really good images and phrases, and eventually I was wholly, viscerally caught up in a personification of my humble drinking glass. Here’s the poem I’ve been refining from that recent exercise:
Drinking Glass
What is it? Why so insistent?
Mouth wide,
yearning, baby-birding...
What can fill your wordless longing?
And why so upset?
Tears
bunch up
around you and drop.
Or is that sweat?
Such an effort to hold the cold?
Lifted from my table,
you leave a perfect empty circle.
Say something solid, if liquid
wasn't what you wanted.
Or if you were
hot for it, then sing.
Here, my glass.
I'll help you bring
your high-toned ring.
Or is silence
your persistent stance
because it's better?
Since any tune
you tell foretells
the clatter
when you'll shatter.
My body began writing this poem, and now, even as my mind has begun taking up the revision, I’m still using somatic techniques—running the images down the page so that my eye must travel, keeping the phrases at a similar length-of-breath, imagining the “body” of my drinking glass as being similar to my own body, and its desires being similar to mine, and so forth.
If you free up your own writing from your logical mind, what might your body have you write?
Geoff Bouvier’s new book, Us From Nothing (Black Lawrence Press, 2024), is a poetic history that spans from the Big Bang to the near future.
image credit: Dicky Jiang.