I had students pair up for this poetry exercise. It turned out extremely well, I think-everyone had novel solutions to work against the grain of the couplets (this isn’t anti-Pope, btw. Pope rocks. Pope would be, to paraphrase Atmosphere, bigger than guns and cigarettes if he were alive today). Here is a poem by one of the pairs:
Then build a New, or act it in a Plain.�offend in Artsby a Love to PartsOne glaring carmine Chaos and wild Pileof wit;�� spit�� depositPoets like Painters; the nakedNature and the Living Grace,������� Some thingwhose Lies convinc'd at Sight we findThat gives us backthe Imageof our Mind: As bodies materialize through������� ������� Excess of Blood.Words are like Alexander Pope;False Eloquence,and still
-Leslie Matton-Flynn and Kathy Peterson
