List Poem Directions

In the comment box below put your list poem directions.
I have put my own new list poem directions there too. (You may use my directions or anyone else's directions -- except for your own -- to write a list poem.)

I Tried to Describe You (Workshop)

Read the short-short story. Click on the comment box below. If you have a blogger account or a gmail account already. Type your comments--what you like, what you suggest, and what you have questions about--into the box, sign in, and submit. If you do not have a blogger account create one by following the directions on the comment page. You can use any email; it does not have to be a blogger email. Then when you return to the comment page, type your comments--what you like, what you suggest, and what you have questions about--into the box, sign in, and submit. (If you want to see example comments click on any of the comment boxes below.) Do this before class on Tuesday, February 24.

I Tried to Describe You

I tried to describe you to someone the other day, but I failed horribly. I just couldn’t think of the right words to describe you. I couldn’t describe you in way that made sense to anyone but me. But seeing as I couldn’t ignore the question, I said “oh he’s kinda tall, dark brown hair, green eyes, and a really great smile.” And I cringed as I said it, because it was just so vague. I could have been describing anyone in the world. I know tons of people with that description so I wasn’t really describing you. What I should have said was that you look like Christmas morning when you’re a little kid. You know…waking up at the crack of dawn, running into the living room (or whatever room, your tree so happened to be) and laying your eyes on all those presents that Santa magically brought to your house in the middle of the night. And with out a second to spare, you dash around the house waking up the entire family, shouting “HE CAME. SANTA CAME! WAKE UP ITS CHRISTMAS!!” And of coarse everyone else slowly gets out of bed, and no one else is excited as you. The excitement is over whelming and all you can think about is ripping open every single one of your presents. Waiting this long, a whole year, was torturous enough; another second might just kill you. Not one tiny millisecond could be wasted anymore. You get mad because your parents tell you to wait until everyone is around the tree. Don’t they understand that the anticipation is unbearable? Don’t they know that if you wait any longer, your heart might just explode from your chest? Or that you’ve got so much adrenaline and excitement just pulsing through your veins that you could run to the moon and back? Don’t they know that you got almost no sleep at all because you couldn’t wait for morning? Do they realize that this is your favorite day of the year, the BEST thing in the world to you? How could they tell you to wait? But when they finally let you open your gifts, all of that excitement just bursts from the tip of your fingers as you rip open the gifts at lightening speed. Each gift you open is better than the last. But finally you open that one gift. That one gift that you had been waiting for what felt like a lifetime. An eternity. You scream at the top of your lungs because if you don’t, all the happiness and excitement and joy might just eat away at your insides. You freak out and run around, but still no one else understands how ecstatic you are. They might know that you’re really happy with that gift, but really they aren’t feeling it, so they couldn’t possibly understand. They couldn’t understand how nothing else in the world matters at that point. Everything and everyone else is completely insignificant. Nothing is as important as that moment, and that gift, and you. The world at that moment revolves completely and entirely around you and that gift. That’s how you look to me.

Short Short Fiction Assignment

GENRE STUDY: (Very) Short Fiction

(also called “microfiction,” “sudden Fiction,” and “Short-short Stories)

Published Examples & Exercises

“Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood (This is an exercise involving plot.)

Write a short-short story in which you tell the same story several times but vary some element of that story (the beginnings, the endings, the main character, the setting, a key object, the narrator, etc.)

“Ghost Children of Tacoma” by Richard Brautigan (This is an exercise involving point of view)

Write a short-short story in which write about something in the narrator’s imagination (a fantasy, imaginative play, make-believe) as if it were true. Describe the imaginary events with precise (but invented) details. (In Brautigan’s story the narrator uses very precise numbers to describe how many planes, tanks, ships, etc. he has destroyed during his childhood war games.) You could narrate the story from the point of view of someone looking back at the childhood games (though this person still narrates with a childishly naïve belief in the fantasy) or from the child’s point of view.

“Waiting” by Peggy McNally and “The Book of the Grotesque” by Sherwood Anderson (This is an exercise involving character.)

Write a short-short story that focuses on revealing the inner life of a character.

• You could follow “Waiting” by using a third person narrator and a single sentence to write about a day-in-the-life of a person (or a description of the person’s activities and thoughts) that reveals some hidden truth about the character.
• You could follow “The Book of the Grotesque” by exaggerating the characteristics, activities, and thoughts of a character so as to clearly reveal some truth about the character (and other people too). Be careful to write a grotesque (an exaggerated character that reveals a truth) as opposed to a stereotype (a simplified character in which common assumptions replace observation and truth).
• Or you could combine the two: create a “grotesque” in one sentence.

“I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone” by Richard Brautigan (This is an exercise involving associative description.)

Write a short-short story in which you describe a person, place, or thing through a comparison with something that (on the surface) is quite different from that person, place, or thing; although, under the surface the comparison conveys a truth.

“Murder in the Dark” by Margaret Atwood

Write a short-short story in which you tell a story about playing a game. Then reflect on the meaning of the game. What does it reveal about competition or about telling stories or about being a friend…or about anything else?

Type up, revise, and proofread one story to turn in by the end of class on Friday. Type up excerpts from the other exercises to show that you have understood and have completed the assignments. Turn these in by the end of class on Friday.
If you have time do the extra credit.

Extra Credit:

“Letter to a Funeral Parlor” by Lydia Davis

Write a story in the form of letter. The letter should focus on your objection to someone’s use of a word or phrase.