collaborative american sentences
November 22, 2007
Just when you thought I was over writing American Sentences — think again! Glad and I spent a couple of days writing a number of them together.
Our process was to work through e-mail and each take turns completing sentences the other person started. Take a look at what we came up with:
When I said, ‘a wing and a prayer,’ I meant something else entirely.
Opt for the comfortable shoes so that other shoes will feel envy.
In the wrong hands — barren branches, but in the right ones — apple blossoms.
Her hair looked like someone had seriously messed with more than her mind.
Broken legs never stopped anyone from political grandstanding.
Mistletoe is better known for its ability to embarrass.
Eggnog, who came up with such a poor substitute for Baileys and cream?
It was difficult to read him when Babelfish botched the translation.
In the blink of an eye you shed your skin and stand there gleaming at me.
While the radiator knocked and hissed we sang along in b minor.
Like a dog returning to vomit feathers and claws, we seek you out.
The sky had a quilted quality that struggled to embrace nightfall.
I would have written but I stopped to listen to cicadas singing.
Faithless, the birds never consider leaving a forwarding address.
Insects: Too many legs to bother with square-dancing or sack races.
Each time it gets easier to focus on flaws where there aren’t any.
Left to her own devices everything was arranged in odd numbers.
The sound of the morning dove is not at all unlike your leaky heart.
Not a day has gone by that hasn’t ended when I wanted it to.
There’s a moment in every day when letting go is a needful thing.
Bound by nothing but twine it was so much harder to keep promises.
Listen, that sound is not unlike the song of emerging crocuses.
The decorations have gone up again, and yet I long solitude.
Comments
4 Responses to “collaborative american sentences”
Got something to say, toughguy?
This is my blog wherein I, Dana Guthrie Martin, write things and stuff. Most of the time, writing and I hobble along in a sort of three-legged race where there is no finish line. (more...)
It’s tricky to rock a rhyme / To rock a rhyme that’s right on time / It’s tricky (Its Tricky) tricky tricky tricky tricky / It’s tricky to rock a rhyme / To rock a rhyme that’s right on time / It’s tricky (t-t-t-t-t-t-t) tricky tricky tricky tricky tricky — Run-D.M.C.
-
beg, borrow, but don't steal
This work is licensed under Creative Commons. If you don’t credit Dana (by using her full name and preferably by linking back to the appropriate post) for however you copy, distribute, transmit or adapt her words, you are being bad. And naughty. And she will have her servant monkeys hunt you down and cut your hands off so you can never copy, distribute, transmit or adapt anyone’s work again and call it your own.
(Unless, of course, you were to use your butt cheeks to manipulate your keyboard with the copying, distributing, transmitting, adapting and whatnot, but Dana fortunately has only met one person whose butt cheeks are that talented. He could play a major third on a piano using nothing but his ass. She kids you not.).
-
flick, flick, flick
-
i cannot be bought
I love every one of these. How did you do it - did someone write the first half and the other person complete it?
Catherine, that precisely how we worked. Thanks for asking ~ I added a process note to the post.
I read these on Glad’s site, and I’m enjoying them here too. These sentences have a lot of punch to them, more energy than most. The observations are witty, human, and entertaining. There’s no end to the exploration of American Sentences, and these in particular.
some of these, very provocative. love it. encouraged to give it a go with some writing friends.