Week of First Drafts - Tuesday - Stream of Consciousness

[bodkin]

Write a poem where the images / description / action just flow, without much in the way of structure. You may have a character whose consciousness it is that's streaming, or you might have a stream from a broadly characterless narrator, or you may even just stream your own consciousness into the poem.

You might find it helps to remove some or all of the usual breaks: line-breaks, strophe-breaks, full-stops, or even all punctuation whatsoever... but you don't have to. Do what works for you.

A famous stream of consciousness poem is T.S.Elliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock but I'm sure you can easily find other examples if Elliot is not your cup of toast and tea. Elliot has used line and strophe breaks, but his sentences are quite extended and each one has a strophe to itself, which helps pull the whole thing out into an extended, rambling monologue.

[stuartryder]

Forgive my facetium, but isn't a first draft stream of consciousness by default? I mean to say, at least it should be.

Stuart

[stuartryder]

Or are you saying we should be posting a first draft of a poem that is supposed to suggest stream of consciousness but actually will have taken many edits and crits before it is finally released in its finished form?

I like the irony!

Stuart

[stuartryder]

This is a poem without beginning
or end but i couldn't stop myself
using a capital when i started
writing, or a full stop when
i finished.

Sorry.

(Sorry again.)

[brianedwards]

There seems to be some confusion between stream-of-consciousness as a method of writing and stream-of-consciousness as a literary style.
I'd assumed Ian was referring to the latter.

B.

[Raine]

I'm not sure what's expected of me here. I presume you mean free-writing. Here goes anyway and if it's wrong ... Ooops !

The truth is: There is no truth; at least no broad spectrum truth. The truth is: There is only supposition; supposition and the conclusions that we draw when we’re done supposing. My own, peculiar truth, is individual to me; cut like a Savile Row suit. It is loose enough to skirt my insecurities yet tight enough to girdle my propensity for danger. Its length preserves my modesty, its colour indicates my conservative bent and its texture is woven. My truth, by all exterior indication, is middle of the road. Yet on the inside, where no one sees, my truth sings arias and makes oil slick patterns on tepid cups of toast dipped milky tea. It strides out in public with its corset torn and its garter skewed. My truth plays hopscotch in cemeteries, bawls appalling obscenities and apologises to no one. My truth is the bravado and abandon of my youth clad in the wisdom of maturity.

.

[brianedwards]

Appropriately Attired


No, we'll not step out this morning, you
and I and he and she, under an evening
sky more fit for cadavers than costumes.
Not waste our time kneeling, sucking up
the smell of polished wood and pomade,
believing there's a bank account stuffed
with Sundays and dusty dog-eared scrolls.

No, it wouldn't do to waste such threads
in parks— a scrape is all a child's knee
is guaranteed, that perhaps and a scab
or two to pick, to pick and chew, ewww,
the horrid things we do, or did, as kids.
At least we like to think so, looking down,
bespoke and spectacled above the sifting
of sand amid grand leaps of bold fantasy:
heroic swings across teeming jungle floors,
spinning flight test simulators and slides
into waters infested with whole colouring
books of imagination, no, we big people
prefer to pick and choose what snippets
of play we waltz with, and those disposed
to Faustian doubts, despite frequent bouts
of bold misanthropy, inevitably hold sway.

No, these clothes will never last a season
when the snow's so scarce the hills all wag
their big green tongues at dusty sledges.

Hills once had names and legendary bumps,
myths were born in tufts of grass battered
by the bouncing bums of boys who spent
their best years farting the loudest letter B.
Me and you and he and we we dressed raggy,
scaffy, skemmy, shared smokes and tagged
impossible words on bus shelters, bog walls
and made up language as we went. Di-dee-
di-dee. Ho-hum. Scum I suppose we were,
all knee-patched, zippered down and winter
blowing through the best part of our years.

I'll not rear a child in rags despite the scrags
that pound the cobbles of my past. Dressed
one's best is policy to sweep away the tracks
of footprints tarnishing the landscape of my
youth. Uncouth I was, and am, but dammit
Sunday's more than pews and false promise:
a wardrobe's worth it's weight in scripture.












~

[ray miller]

Clearing the Bar

So I saunter into the bar of The Anchor
about twenty minutes before the kick-off,
order a pint of their finest lager and seek
my favourite chair. It's not there - or rather
is preoccupied by a middle class type
in casual dress with his casually dressed friends
and they're watching the fucking Rugby.
What time's this finish? I enquire tersely -
fifteen minutes or so, says the guy in my seat,
and then you'll be able to watch the soccer.
Football it's called, son, don't say soccer,
whenever I hear someone utter that word
I yearn for the days of corporal punishment
when rudeness and ignorance got a good thrashing,
no, I'll qualify that statement by adding
that women and Americans might be excused
and merely receive a written warning
but any British adult male saying soccer
is deserving of little compassion for it can be
indicative of one thing only: Rugby,
or you may even call it rugger, a game
played by hooligans; expensively educated
hooligans play Rugby Union, the ignorant
and poor play Rugby League. Classless
society? Don't make me snigger.
Back in the sixties and seventies
when Eddie Waring was a household appliance
and Rugby was on every Saturday afternoon
between the racing and the wrestling
my mother would confess, upon seeing a scrum,
to an almost irresistible longing to stroll up
and kick the arse of each player.
I have this similar compulsion when soccer
is spoken, especially by casual types
sat in my chair. Worst of all I'm reminded
of the time when I was too clever by half.
I'm not now, mind you, but I was back when
at primary school, cleverest kid in the class
and best footballer in the district by a distance,
I mean really good, turn on a sixpence,
kick with each foot and know what to do
before the ball had arrived, positional sense, son,
I had the misfortune to pass the eleven-plus
and with parents to mollify I chose
a Grammar school that played only Rugby.
I still have bad dreams about collapsing scrums.
Oh, look, he's cleared the bar again!
Is it over already? Cheerio!

[Ros]

I see stream of consciousness = long These are very good!

Ros

[Ros]

Lucky strike

Today’s the day for trudge through
snow plough leavings
of piles of shattered grey
that shift and spill under the feet -
for variation slide instead on polished white -
only the perverse would tramp, solitary,
across the fields of unwalked snow
where starlings fight like hermits
and monks inscribe on golden tickets
the prize of hibernation, not
in caves, but in abandoned factories
where tired machines still smell
of chocolate. I can’t go there –
the sound of teeth dropping to the floor
still follows me round supermarkets,
fills my trolley with broccoli. I turn
my face into the wind and see
a world already monogrammed
with the initials of those that came before
like forty-niners demanding their stake
of snow. And now the fog comes down.

[bodkin]

There seems to be some confusion between stream-of-consciousness as a method of writing and stream-of-consciousness as a literary style.
I'd assumed Ian was referring to the latter.

B.

Yes I was, sorry, it didn't even occur to me that there was another meaning for the phrase.

"Stream of Consciousness" as in following the consciousness of a single focus character and never "stepping back" from the view right there in their head. e.g. you don't have any abstract "nobody talking" observations; or even say that something happened to the character, you have to show it happened through what the they think as it actually happens...

Ian

[bodkin]

I'm not sure what's expected of me here. I presume you mean free-writing. Here goes anyway and if it's wrong ... Ooops !

The truth is: There is no truth; at least no broad spectrum truth. The truth is: There is only supposition; supposition and the conclusions that we draw when we’re done supposing. My own, peculiar truth, is individual to me; cut like a Savile Row suit. It is loose enough to skirt my insecurities yet tight enough to girdle my propensity for danger. Its length preserves my modesty, its colour indicates my conservative bent and its texture is woven. My truth, by all exterior indication, is middle of the road. Yet on the inside, where no one sees, my truth sings arias and makes oil slick patterns on tepid cups of toast dipped milky tea. It strides out in public with its corset torn and its garter skewed. My truth plays hopscotch in cemeteries, bawls appalling obscenities and apologises to no one. My truth is the bravado and abandon of my youth clad in the wisdom of maturity.

.

As already discussed, this wasn't quite what I meant but you are free to take the prompt in any way you wish so that doesn't really matter.

And you have captured something of the idea: this is very immediate -- it is all coming from "me" without anything described outside that character; and is has a great flow where the ideas are clearly being evolved as a single extended thought.

Plus I quite like it.

If I had a criticism, it would be that this is quite abstract with nothing to anchor it to real life. If you could have segued in from the character arriving at this thought because of something that happened to them immediately before, then that would be stronger, I think.

Ian

[bodkin]

Appropriately Attired

No, it wouldn't do to waste such threads
in parks— a scrape is all a child's knee
is guaranteed, that perhaps and a scab
or two to pick, to pick and chew, ewww,
the horrid things we do, or did, as kids.
At least we like to think so, looking down,
bespoke and spectacled above the sifting
of sand amid grand leaps of bold fantasy:
heroic swings across teeming jungle floors,
spinning flight test simulators and slides
into waters infested with whole colouring
books of imagination, no, we big people
prefer to pick and choose what snippets
of play we waltz with, and those disposed
to Faustian doubts, despite frequent bouts
of bold misanthropy, inevitably hold sway.

No, these clothes will never last a season
when the snow's so scarce the hills all wag
their big green tongues at dusty sledges.

Hills once had names and legendary bumps,
myths were born in tufts of grass battered
by the bouncing bums of boys who spent
their best years farting the loudest letter B.
Me and you and he and we we dressed raggy,
scaffy, skemmy, shared smokes and tagged
impossible words on bus shelters, bog walls
and made up language as we went. Di-dee-
di-dee. Ho-hum. Scum I suppose we were,
all knee-patched, zippered down and winter
blowing through the best part of our years.

I'll not rear a child in rags despite the scrags
that pound the cobbles of my past. Dressed
one's best is policy to sweep away the tracks
of footprints tarnishing the landscape of my
youth. Uncouth I was, and am, but dammit
Sunday's more than pews and false promise:
a wardrobe's worth it's weight in scripture.

Hi Brian,

You've got the flow here, and you've put it in the consciousness of a narrator, rather than a visible character.

I'm wondering now whether I was wrong to suggest that? It seemed to make sense at the time but reading what you have here I am wondering whether making the character abstract has had a side-effect of moving the discussion to a more abstract level. Sort of turns it into a commentary instead of something that reflects immediate thoughts.

Ah well, it would be a pretty poor exercise if I didn't learn from it

For the content of your piece I like it. You've got your usual earthiness and happiness to play with slightly uncomfortable observations, and packaged it in a monologue that pulls me rapidly through to the end.

Not sure I really take the reference to church in the last two lines, but each to his own...

Ian

[bodkin]

Clearing the Bar

So I saunter into the bar of The Anchor
about twenty minutes before the kick-off,
order a pint of their finest lager and seek
my favourite chair. It's not there - or rather
is preoccupied by a middle class type
in casual dress with his casually dressed friends
and they're watching the fucking Rugby.
What time's this finish? I enquire tersely -
fifteen minutes or so, says the guy in my seat,
and then you'll be able to watch the soccer.
Football it's called, son, don't say soccer,
whenever I hear someone utter that word
I yearn for the days of corporal punishment
when rudeness and ignorance got a good thrashing,
no, I'll qualify that statement by adding
that women and Americans might be excused
and merely receive a written warning
but any British adult male saying soccer
is deserving of little compassion for it can be
indicative of one thing only: Rugby,
or you may even call it rugger, a game
played by hooligans; expensively educated
hooligans play Rugby Union, the ignorant
and poor play Rugby League. Classless
society? Don't make me snigger.
Back in the sixties and seventies
when Eddie Waring was a household appliance
and Rugby was on every Saturday afternoon
between the racing and the wrestling
my mother would confess, upon seeing a scrum,
to an almost irresistible longing to stroll up
and kick the arse of each player.
I have this similar compulsion when soccer
is spoken, especially by casual types
sat in my chair. Worst of all I'm reminded
of the time when I was too clever by half.
I'm not now, mind you, but I was back when
at primary school, cleverest kid in the class
and best footballer in the district by a distance,
I mean really good, turn on a sixpence,
kick with each foot and know what to do
before the ball had arrived, positional sense, son,
I had the misfortune to pass the eleven-plus
and with parents to mollify I chose
a Grammar school that played only Rugby.
I still have bad dreams about collapsing scrums.
Oh, look, he's cleared the bar again!
Is it over already? Cheerio!

Hi Ray,

This is chock-full of character isn't it and it is certainly a flow of thought all springing from the one event at the start and nicely terminated with the corresponding one at the end.

I wonder if the first line isn't a bit much of an observation of you rather than your experience?

If you just came in in the middle:

"The bar of The Anchor..."

I think it would be more like it just happened to you. You can always remark immediately afterwards about how you were sauntering...

Enjoyed it.

Ian

[bodkin]

Lucky strike

Today’s the day for trudge through
snow plough leavings
of piles of shattered grey
that shift and spill under the feet -
for variation slide instead on polished white -
only the perverse would tramp, solitary,
across the fields of unwalked snow
where starlings fight like hermits
and monks inscribe on golden tickets
the prize of hibernation, not
in caves, but in abandoned factories
where tired machines still smell
of chocolate. I can’t go there –
the sound of teeth dropping to the floor
still follows me round supermarkets,
fills my trolley with broccoli. I turn
my face into the wind and see
a world already monogrammed
with the initials of those that came before
like forty-niners demanding their stake
of snow. And now the fog comes down.

Nicely done. At first I thought you were getting a bit abstract with the hermits and the golden tickets, but the tired machines still smelling of chocolate is a great touch and however strange it is the next sentence is clearly "all about you" and your fear of supermarkets (?). Then the next sentence is right back in the subjects head experiencing the wind and the tracks of previous pedestrians.

Wonder if the last line isn't ducking back into a less immediate viewpoint?

Although it is a nice sudden end otherwise.

Ian

[bodkin]

Strange orbits

It is all very well (indicate left) the snowplough,
and it cleared the middle of the street
(indicate right, wheel hard over, where's he going)
but the complete ramparts of compact slush
(can't get in there, maybe further along)
too strong and too much and while I could drive in
(nope) I'm not sure I could drive out,
good job there's not much traffic about
(this is no good, another three-point turn)
try the main road, that was clearer,
prefer to park nearer (indicate right)
in sight of the house, if I can,
although we've not had trouble with vandals
for some time (a-ha, on the other side...
I'll need to turn again) THIS is SUCH a PAIN,
but I can get in there now
in spite of the snowplough (indicate left,
drop a gear, is the curb near,
of course I cannot see) get the spade
after tea (I'm up it now, reverse) and clear
a car-shaped space beside the drive
(handbrake, ignition, lights)
I hope next door
don't want their car before
spring.

[Pauline]

Teenagers

Crawled out of bed, I still feel weary,
Trying to focus, eyes still bleary.
Stagger down the stairs to see
chaos looking back at me.
Pots and pans are pilled up high
from midnight feasts. They didn’t try
to clean the mess that they had caused.
Oblivious, they hardly paused,
not noticing the devastation,
too busy eating their creation.
I scrape the plates and soak the pans
and tie my hair up with red hands
all sore and raw with constant cleaning,
till my kitchen’s clean and gleaming.
Walking round the house I see
discarded clothes. It bothers me
that they just think that I’m a slave.
They’ll drive me to an early grave.
I’ve only been up for an hour.
I’m exhausted now, I’ll need a shower
to liven myself up and face the day
of thankless tasks, for minimum pay.

[bodkin]

That's the right idea Pauline, but I think you can get even closer to the head of the character if you make them more directly about what (s)he is experiencing.

e.g. your very first line, even though it is immediate, is impersonal. If you add an "I":

Crawled out of bed I still felt weary,
Trying to focus, eyes still bleary.

Now the second line (for me at least) inherits the intimacy of the "I" and really like something happening right now, rather than a more general statement along the lines of "there are occasions when these things happen".

But you might disagree, these things are a bit to do with personal taste...

Ian

[Pauline]

I fully agree Ian. I shall do that right away. Thanks.

[zootsuitmod]

Brian - I loved this, it ran, it tumbled, it came helter skelter off the page.
Pauline - That had a great scheme, easy on the ear rhymes and got the message across.
Bodkin - The use of brackets in poetry had always confused me. Are they to appraise the reader of concious thought, rather than description by the writer?
Ros - I love the idea of the cure for rotting teeth being Broccoli. Is it a stream of unconsciousness, like a dream or a nightmare?
Ray - At the risk of insighting a carmudgeonly outburst, I found this a witty and sincere recollection which made me chuckle. I liked the balance and structure as well.
Raine - A nice evaluation of the inner and outer person. How we see and how we want others to see. Some great visuals. I would maybe liked to have seen the word Truth popping up more in the later lines to give it a thread like quality.

[zootsuitmod]

Self Loathing

How do you feel big man?
How does it feel to take someone’s love
hand in glove with another, so sentient being.
Life! Don’t talk to me about life or feeling,
a heart as big as a planet and not enough love to go round.
Are you a comfortable Casanova?
I think you know the answer.
And that remark today about getting back on the horse
Love turned into a hunting analogy.
What could be worse?
Cold calculating conniving,
Reviving the hopes of people that had been cursed
to be alone
You should be ashamed, should burn in flames
Better to have loved and lost but at what cost
To you the aching pointed pain of pity;
Pity for yourself the one you love the most.

[bodkin]

Bodkin - The use of brackets in poetry had always confused me. Are they to appraise the reader of concious thought, rather than description by the writer?

Usually I tend to take it as an aside, and I don't generally use them.

In this case this was actually what happened to me yesterday evening and the bits in brackets are me driving... It seemed appropriate since an activity like driving is semi-automatic, you are aware of it but not so aware of it that it interrupts your other thoughts.

Ian

[brianedwards]

Lucky strike

Today’s the day for trudge through
snow plough leavings
of piles of shattered grey
that shift and spill under the feet -
for variation slide instead on polished white -
only the perverse would tramp, solitary,
across the fields of unwalked snow
where starlings fight like hermits
and monks inscribe on golden tickets
the prize of hibernation, not
in caves, but in abandoned factories
where tired machines still smell
of chocolate. I can’t go there –
the sound of teeth dropping to the floor
still follows me round supermarkets,
fills my trolley with broccoli. I turn
my face into the wind and see
a world already monogrammed
with the initials of those that came before
like forty-niners demanding their stake
of snow. And now the fog comes down.

Very fine Rosemary. The images are melancholic but the sounds evoke a sense of whimsy, a difficult balancing act but one that succeeds. Line 5 needs some punctuation?

B.

~

[brianedwards]

Clearing the Bar

So I saunter into the bar of The Anchor
about twenty minutes before the kick-off,
order a pint of their finest lager and seek
my favourite chair. It's not there - or rather
is preoccupied by a middle class type
in casual dress with his casually dressed friends
and they're watching the fucking Rugby.
What time's this finish? I enquire tersely -
fifteen minutes or so, says the guy in my seat,
and then you'll be able to watch the soccer.
Football it's called, son, don't say soccer,
whenever I hear someone utter that word
I yearn for the days of corporal punishment
when rudeness and ignorance got a good thrashing,
no, I'll qualify that statement by adding
that women and Americans might be excused
and merely receive a written warning
but any British adult male saying soccer
is deserving of little compassion for it can be
indicative of one thing only: Rugby,
or you may even call it rugger, a game
played by hooligans; expensively educated
hooligans play Rugby Union, the ignorant
and poor play Rugby League. Classless
society? Don't make me snigger.
Back in the sixties and seventies
when Eddie Waring was a household appliance
and Rugby was on every Saturday afternoon
between the racing and the wrestling
my mother would confess, upon seeing a scrum,
to an almost irresistible longing to stroll up
and kick the arse of each player.
I have this similar compulsion when soccer
is spoken, especially by casual types
sat in my chair. Worst of all I'm reminded
of the time when I was too clever by half.
I'm not now, mind you, but I was back when
at primary school, cleverest kid in the class
and best footballer in the district by a distance,
I mean really good, turn on a sixpence,
kick with each foot and know what to do
before the ball had arrived, positional sense, son,
I had the misfortune to pass the eleven-plus
and with parents to mollify I chose
a Grammar school that played only Rugby.
I still have bad dreams about collapsing scrums.
Oh, look, he's cleared the bar again!
Is it over already? Cheerio!

A fun read Ray, with a colourful narrator as dislikable as the lads who nabbed his seat.
Not sure it works as S-O-C to be honest: far too much description and linear narrative.
Hope you don't mind, but I had a wee play and found what I think might qualify as S-O-C.
It's a different beast entirely of course, but with respect:

I yearn for the days of corporal punishment
when rudeness and ignorance got a good thrashing,
no, I'll qualify that statement by adding
that women and Americans might be excused
and merely receive a written warning
but any British adult male saying soccer
is deserving of little compassion for it can be
indicative of one thing only: Rugby,
or you may even call it rugger, a game
played by hooligans; back in the sixties
and seventies when Eddie Waring
was a household appliance and Rugby
was on every Saturday afternoon
between the racing and the wrestling
my mother would confess, upon seeing a scrum,
to an almost irresistible longing to stroll up
and kick the arse of each player.
I have this similar compulsion when soccer
is spoken, especially by casual types
sat in my chair. Worst of all I'm reminded
of the time when I was too clever by half
and had the misfortune to pass the eleven-plus
and with parents to mollify I chose
a Grammar school that played only Rugby.


Mmm . . . dunno. Probably still too prosaic?
Anyway, as I said, a fun read.


B.

~

[brianedwards]

Ian, zoot

Thanks for the kudos. Of the exercises so far, this is the one I would most like to continue working on, so your comments are encouraging.

B.

~