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why i love collaborative poetry*

*which The Poetry Collaborative lovingly refers to as copo, which of course means we all copo at the poco

I’ve been very interested in collaborating for some time, and I’ve done a little of it here and there. But recently, I decided to give it more attention and make a concerted effort to do some collaborative writing each week.

Collaborative poetry makes me all zingy — it gives me that all-over pins-and-needles feeling. The process has been nothing short of amazing. I can’t believe I waited so long to approach writing in this way. The surprise of the poems we’ve written. Oh, the unforeseen turns the writing takes. Going in and not knowing where you’ll come out, or when or how. The way we each respond to the words and phrases the other person contributes. How a piece that in one moment seems like it’s headed nowhere fast can, in a word or two, find its way somewhere startling, strange and gorgeous.

Collaborative writing has helped me make it through a few days when I thought I wouldn’t get any writing done at all, when I was certain my creativity was waning or dozing or had wandered off into the woods for a nice afternoon hike in the Pacific Northwest but had somehow managed to get all turned around and (of course, being the impractical creature it is) hadn’t had the foresight to take any survival gear along so I would have had to wait anticipatorily for its return for who knows how long before filing a missing-inspiration report and sending the poem-sniffing dogs in after it.

But collaborative writing kept all that from happening and has shown me that, even when I don’t think I’ve got a single good line in me, someone else + me can still = some damn fine poetry.

For lack of a better word, something pretty neat can happen when two people make a commitment to write together. And that something pretty neat has put a big fat smile on my face more than once. Right now, even, I am smiling.

Collaborations lift the need to be great and reveal the need to just be together. — Bob Rosenthal

random-load co-po tip #1

Send one of your poems to a collaborator so he or she can write a companion piece.

random-load co-po tip #2

Send one of your poems to a collaborator so he or she can write a companion piece.

random-load co-po tip #3

Send an interesting news item to a collaborator, and each of you write a poem based on the same story.

random-load co-po tip #4

Use instant messaging to write a poem with a collaborator by taking turns one word, one phrase or one line at a time. With group chat, you can do this with more than one partner.

random-load co-po tip #5

Send an interesting news item to a collaborator, and each of you write a poem based on the same story.

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