For about ten years, starting in the mid-nineties, David Shepherd explored improvising poetry with various diverse groups. As is his nature, David encouraged their input, which led to an eclectic collection of games. In some instances, the games were used in a competitive format, similar to the Improv Olympics. Others, as a form of street theatre, where the audience became participants.
This is a rough outline written by David in 2003 for a proposed improvised poetry handbook. I've tried to reconstruct it as accurately as possible to represent David's objectives. It includes a series of games just begging to be used by any group who sees fit.
IMPROVISE POETRY!
FIND YOUR VOICE with DAVID SHEPHERD
By
“improvised poetry” we don’t mean poetry that’s written solo in the middle of
the night. We don’t mean pages &
pages read, word for word, to as many people as the poet can get to sit and
listen.
We mean poetry
that starts with you, the
spectator. You tell us what theme is on your mind. Or you give us a color, a location, a famous
character, a time, the title for an imaginary poem, a smell, a political situation. And then we fire feelings and pictures back
to you. Sometimes there are two or three
or four of us making up what becomes your
poem.
Every group
that’s done our Poetry Program has added something to it. Ten years ago we
started in Washington Square, New York City-- surrounded by bongo players and
drug pushers, undercover cops and NYU students, strong men and comedians. All of a sudden the people listening said, “Hey, I want to try that.” They walked
onto our stage, and we gave them a game to play.
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| David Shepherd getting people to improvise poetry on the spot in Washington Square Park. |
They won’t
make it into the Oxford Book of Verse, but their poems were alive, warm,
tingly. Their words came out of the
group, the moment. We were amazed: there
were no clunkers. Through group creativity New Yorkers were finding their Voice.
And finding your Voice is part of what life is
all about.
In Chicago:
I found a group at Urbis Orbus cafe. They said, “Let’s compete—Men and Women,
or South Siders/North Siders.” And they
did—weekly. The teams played tooth and
nail. It was fun. Nobody’s feelings got
hurt. You can play Adults against Teenagers,
or “O” Positives against “O”
Negatives. The names don’t matter. Do
whatever works-- so two groups take one
suggestion from the audience and shape it into 2 poems.
Then I went to
Toronto, where I worked with an Alternative High School. Well, I got a dozen very alternative
poets. They’d invented a game called
“Out the Window.” You put together a
giant panorama of sights & smells, and you call it forth using the most
sensual vocabulary you can find. You
imagine it’s so close to you you can touch it: a surreal poetry game.
I went to
Amagansett, Long Island, where our team traveled from home to home weekly. That was fun because you get to see many
different families, dogs, cats, gerbils, soups, beers. Our team played Main Beach. We’d give out a hundred flyers to promote the
show; then at sunset play in front of a row of benches. One of our players was doing a poem blindfold
about Pat Nixon, and he walked off a sand dune.
We had to catch him. The man
who’d given us the Nixon suggestion was amazed at what we did with it.
I learned
Improv Poetry is not about rhymes. It’s
not about elegant relationships or remote abstraction. It’s not about publishing your rhymed memories. It’s finding your Voice,
stating your reactions strongly about everyday events and everyday
behavior. It’s a butter & eggs kind
of poetry that any one can master and call their own.
HERE ARE SOME EXERCISES to get you ready
to improvise
Close your
eyes, take a deep breath and describe a series of things you see in your mind’s
eye—one word each: skull, violet, brush, star, dingy, boxer…. Don’t hurry.
Do the same
thing only describe each object in 2 words, eg “red banana.”.
Do the same
thing only describe each thing in 3 words: “ deep, greasy pit.”.
Make up a
minute’s worth of nonsense words that are light and fast, eg: “When I go a
little way, I whistle a lot and keep my eye high to the sky…”
Improvise a
minute’s worth of nonsense words that are heavy, like, “might makes right and
strong’s gone down into crypts where monsters make mad songs.”
Improvise
gibberish that tells a story, and switch from English to gibberish and back
every 10 seconds.
Take a bland
topic like “Toothpaste.” Express
yourself on it--finding your Voice in your emphasis, your rhythm, your feeling
and your point of view.
Sometimes a game or match between two
teams is judged.
If you’re asked to judge:
before
each improvisation, read the rules. They appear like this:
Name of GAME for “X” number of players:___
TIME LIMIT:___ NEEDED: first and last line (for instance).
What to watch for:
Body
Movement:
Is the player’s body unlocked (hands
not in pockets, not clasped
behind back)? Are the pelvis and neck loose? Does the player use the body to express the rhythm & feeling of the poem? Give 0-1 points.
Emotion:
Does the player express the theme not through the head but through a feeling? And when that feeling is dropped, does the player pick up another feeling? Do you believe the feelings? Give 0-3 points.
Rhythm:
Is the rhythm repetitious, lackluster and halting, or is it strong, variable and expressive? Give 0-3 points.
Senses:
Do the words evoke things you can see,
smell, hear, touch, taste? Give 0-3 points.
To
the MC: you introduce the players, explain the games, and choose the judges.
You call a player “out” (for instance when someone uses 4 words in the game “Three
Words”). Encourage audience members to improvise with players. Make much of
anyone’s success in finding their voice.
Blind
Poet for 1 player plus guide.
NEEDED from the audience: a hero or
heroine & a matching color. Cover
the player’s eyes with a scarf.
Spectators shout, “Bring on the blind poet!” Guide the player on, then douse the player
with the “oil of inspiration” and ignite the oil as a “muse of fire.” As the
“flaming” player writhes and shakes, spectators shout out 3 historical heroes
(eg: Elvis, Superman, de Gaulle). When the poet picks one, they suggest a
color. The player improvises a story in epic style, weaving in the suggested
color. TIME LIMIT: 90 seconds.
SOME EPIC POETRY:
And then went down to the ship,
Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly
sea, and
We set up mast and sail on that
swart ship
Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies
also,
Heavy with weeping, so winds from
sternward
Bore us out onward with bellying canvas
Circe’s this craft, the trim-coiffed
goddess.
HOMER Translated by Ezra Pound
Q:
Why is this game a favorite?
•
No
rhymes have to be forced into the flow of images.
•
The
stories are familiar (Britney Spears, Bill Clinton, Bob Dylan).
•
Without
seeing, the voice takes on a new power and rhythm
•
A
“fire” jolts the player.
Panting and screaming, the “blind” poet
slips smoothly into epic poetry.
 |
| Blind Poet. |
ON
HOLD for
two players. 60-second limit.
Get
a topic for the Event from suggestions such as travel, money, health, sex,
electronics, real estate, etc. Suppose
you’re given “travel.” The game might
start like this:
Player 1: Ting a ling a ling.
Player 2:
WAKING UP: Hello. Who is this?
Player 1:
Sorry! It is late, but you’ve
just won a wonderful free five day trip
to the Caribbean… Another call’s coming in.
May I put you on hold?
Player 2: Goes back to sleep and
fantasizes about the trip. The dream is
the poem.
Possible suggestions: an accident in the family, a lotto win, a
request to interview the sleeper, an emergency medical report, a big deal, the
reading of a will.
Text
vs. Improv for 1 writer, 1 poem
on paper, 1 improviser.
Writer
goes first. Read a poem of a dozen
lines, or recite it from memory.
Improviser stands close, shaping the poem in his/her hands. Then the
improviser expresses the same content in the same length of time. The audience
votes on which is the better poem.
Here’s
the point:
Sometimes written poetry shines (I myself
like Villon, Brecht, Blake, Thomas, Molina).
And sometimes improvisation shines. Gary Goodrow reminds us of the minstrel who
won a night’s lodging by improvising on the virtues of his lord--in a poem more
challenging by far than if he just shut up and froze to death in the snow.
2-Bits
for 2 players.
Spectators are told, “Anyone with 25
cents can play. Anyone can win.”
2 players ante up a quarter each. Others who want to play throw in their
quarters, too. Ask the audience for a
topic. The first two players do a 60-second improv on the topic. (at 50 seconds
give a warning.). Spectators chosen to
judge score players on bodily movement, verbal rhythm, feeling and imagery.
Before the quarters get picked up, invite
others to play the winner. They match
the bet (which is now about $1) as you take a topic for round #2. As the game goes on through Round #3 and #4,
the kitty increases. When there are no
more new players, the last winner takes the entire kitty.
 |
| Two Bits. |
Sound
Motion for
2 players
NEEDED:
a literary style and a time of day/weather. 90 second time limit. For instance, Emily Dickinson on a cold
morning.
Q:
What’s the point?
A:
This is usually done not as a burlesque but as an
exploration of how word and motion can merge.
Tight/Loose/Refrain
for 3 players.and percussion. By “tight” we mean poetry with
a fixed line length that rhymes like John Donne. By “loose” we mean poetry without fixed
lines and rimes like Alan Ginsberg.
NEEDED: 3 players. Together
they show how tight they can get
in body and voice. Ask the audience to choose the tightest to play TIGHT. Then they all play loose--with no tension at
all. A second player is chosen to play LOOSE.
The third player is REFRAIN, who
drops a line after TIGHT and LOOSE play.
The audience chooses the theme and the refrain, which is usually bland,
eg: “And that’s the way it was in Parqua Flats.”
The game runs like this: TIGHT, LOOSE,
REFRAIN. TIGHT, LOOSE, REFRAIN. TIGHT, LOOSE, REFRAIN. Time unit: 90 seconds.
Urge players to make choppy or flowing movements,
so one player’s fists, for instance, punch out words, while the other’s arms
draw forth flabby sentences
non-stop. This is a good game to
initiate volunteers from the public. Ask
them to audition, showing how tight or loose they can be. Auditions for any game lengthen your show, raise
quality and involve more of the public.
 |
| Tight/Loose/Refrain |
Rhymed Gibberish
for 1 player and a host to introduce him or her.
Bring on and introduce a famous foreign
poet who speaks no English. Ask the
audience to request their favorite poem written by this poet. Translate their
request into the language of the poet, who then “reads” or recites the poem.
Unlike our other poetry games, which discourage rhyme, this gibberish must rhyme.
TIME LIMIT: 90 seconds. Ask the audience to count the rhymes.
NB: The hallmark of written poetry, which
takes hours to write and revise, is rhyme.
In improv poetry we don’t encourage rhyme
because it usually distorts the flow of feeling.
Q:
Who counts the number of
times the player rhymes?
A: Spectators. Gibberish is not nonsense. It’s a coherent
language that only the speaker understands. Every gibberish word stands for
something in the mind of the poet, eg:
“Zarooska
patievo kromti puss” means to me
“Speedily
into the jaws of death.” If the gibberish
word
“zarooska” appears again, it means“ speedily” to me again..
Chorus
Chorus for the whole team
plus volunteers.
Against a guitar or a drum, the Leader
sings a chorus while players and spectators improvise
new verses. NEEDED: a chorus of 4
lines, eg:
Glory,
glory hallelujah
Glory,
glory hallelujah
Glory,
glory hallelujah
His
truth is marching on.
The Leader points to the player who will
improvise the next four lines. TIME
LIMIT depends on how many are playing.
Primal
Squares for 2-4 players.
NEEDED: a basic relationship for the players
and 3 primal emotions, eg: father/son & hate-fear-pride. With chalk or tape, mark the playing area off
into 4 squares. Label 3 of them with a
primal emotion; the forth is used any
way the player wants. Pick a player or
spectator to do the claps that will move the game forward.
PRIMAL EMOTIONS include pride, hate,
fear, anger, love, boredom, lust, disgust, envy, shame, grief, happiness. When
they hear a clap, players jump from one square to another. They express
themselves in the emotion of the square they land on, giving and taking from
each other. TIME LIMIT: 90 seconds. Use the biggest space you can find--a lawn,
basketball court, football field.
Running from space to space deepens the emotions of players.
Three Words for 3- 6 players.
Choose
a taste or behavior. Players are not
allowed to talk about it at the same time. If 2 of them do, they are both
“out,” and you replace them. A player who uses more or less than 3 words
at a time is out.” TIME LIMIT: 60
seconds.
Out
the Window I See: for 1-4 players.
NEEDED: one
emotion and one smell. TIME LIMIT: 90 seconds.
With the emotion in mind, the player looks up like an X-ray beam through
a window or wall, then closes his/her eyes and imagines what exists on the
other side. Use colorful detail. When subsequent improvisers play, they don’t
start a new panorama; each adds onto the
picture that already exists. .
The panorama created by the game is
twisted, melted, smoky, putrefied, slick, changeable—depending on where the
imagination of up to 4 poets go.
Dada
for any number of
players.
During a blackout players can move and
talk. When the lights go on, they freeze in a tableau. Locations are suggested by the audience.
Players choose a location to use, then
fill that location with as much action, sound effects, talk and song as
possible.
NEEDED: with a location a political or
social theme like “S.U.V.s, sex education, pollution.” TIME LIMIT: 90 seconds. DADA cannot be played outdoors because
there’s no way to control light.
Dada: played indoors.
Before you play, make sure you can black out. A player who’s on lights
turns them off for about 7 seconds, on for about 2. The absurd nature of Dada
can be reinforced by noise, music, dancers, etc.
Blank
(by Phyllis Yampolsky)
1) Solo:
Player enters arena, stands quietly (eyes open or closed), counts to ten
and begins to speak from whatever point of consciousness s/he finds him or
herself in at that moment.
2) Duo:
Same as above, with 2 people.
Before entering the playing arena, they will chose, by one
inconsequential system or another, who will go first. Once the speaking begins, each player
contributes 1,2 or 3 lines by responding to the sense, sound, cadence or
physical motion of the other.
As usual players get points for rhythm,
feeling and visual creativity.
YES/NO QUESTION: for
two players; time limit 2 minutes
NEEDED:
the biggest question the audience can come up with—a question like “Is our
country messed up?” which can be answered “yes” or “no.” With a wave of your hand, get all spectators to shout the question in
unison. Then one player answers
affirmatively, one negatvely. Get the
spectators to roar again. Another “yes”
answer; then a “no” answer. A roar.
Negative/positive--and a final roar.
Give players points for the strength of their convictions, their verbal
detail and their feeling.
To Find your Voice by Improvising Poetry:
Stay with It for 7 Weeks.
(1) Learn the games. Take home the ones you can do alone. Do the exercises, too.
(2) Next time you play, find which game
is your favorite, and do it over and over.
(3) Next time: find your voice in the way you
breathe and move. At home do exercises.
(4) Are you ready to form a team? If so choose a costume, wig, prop. Play characters?
(5) Add sound effects and percussion to
monologs, improvised songs, rap.
(6) Visit the place where you’re going to
play and tell people you’ll need their ideas.
(7)
Start improvising with the audience, then move to the stage and do your show.
Michael Golding is a writer,
director and improv teacher. He can be contacted
for workshops, festivals and private consultations at migaluch@yahoo.com. Michael participated in the evolution of the Improv Olympics
& Canadian Improv Games. Artistic director of the Comic Strip Improv
Group in N.Y. & created the Insight Theatre Company for Planned Parenthood,
Ottawa. He is a faculty member
at El Camino
College in Los Angeles, working with at-risk teens and traditional
students. Michael holds a BFA degree in Drama from New York University’s
Tisch
School of the Arts & an MA degree in Educational Theatre from NYU’s
Steinhardt School of Culture, Education & Human Development.
