Classmate Response 1, Week 11

Dawn's Calisthenic 11, Week 11:


Honestly, what you have here isn't that bad! If you take some of it as junkyard quotes, and remove it from the mad lib format, you have some interesting movements and ideas. Perhaps the hardest thing to do here was to follow one train of thought while at the same time trying to come up with nouns and adjectives that were not cliche and repetitive. I tend to think that majority of the time, our first thoughts end up being those cliches we're fed all the time. So after coming up with one word, I often abandon the original for another that comes after. Do cliches still happen for me? Yes. I'm lazy. But it certainly helps cut down. And I think what helps coherence in a mad lib is when you come up with one word, say--blue (deal with what follows, I know it's crap) try to use those different words over and over in different places, in different ways (sky, water, armor, pills). 

You definitely tried to maintain coherence in the beginning. I loved the crayons. I think the madlib format inhibited the potential those crayons had, for instance, "crayons papered across lines." was a really odd idea and I liked it. I also felt like crayons opens a whole possibility of color and I think I'm a color oriented person. That's why "dark red" in the sixth line disappointed me. There is such an odd variety of colors and their odd names that I would have like to have seen played up more. Dark red just came off flat. Why not "salmon" or something (which I guess is also a little overdone, but still)?

By about the 6-8th line I feel like the crayons and colors are abandoned. If you were like me, about part way through this, you were so frustrated with the madlib that it was difficult to keep the ultimate goal--the piece--in mind, but instead, focused on just making it to the ending. Make it end! This madlib assignment was incredibly difficult, with so many possibilities and nothing to lead you in the right direction, did my words make sense? It was almost like working from scratch but being forced to follow a very strict format. Still though, work done right? And it gave you some interesting things like:

He was a fierce dust
command after summer
harm a quilt
kiss his pear

Odd, abstract images that beg for detail. I say go through this piece, take movements that you like, and expand and make sense of it in another freewrite sometime. Hope this helps! And thanks for helping me workshop so many of my pieces!