Surrealist Poetry

Lez Assistantes

The other night we decided to have an "artsy French night" complete with wine, Serge Gainsbourg, some live music, candles and poetry. We are living in France after all--we should fit in a few activities to channel our past expats (I'm thinking Hemingway, Stein and the like).

Here is a fun game to play next time you get together with friends: it is called Surrealist Poetry.

1. First have everyone sit around a table, each with a piece of paper, a pen and some coloring crayons.

2. Start with each person writing a phrase on their sheet of paper. It can be anything: a poetic sentence, a statement, an observation, a description. Whatever comes to mind.

3. After writing the sentence, each person passes their paper to the person on their left.

4. Now, after reading the phrase, the person must draw a picture somehow representing it: an exact representation of the sentence, or whatever comes to mind after reading it.

5. The person then folds the paper over to cover the sentence, only revealing the image they have just drawn and passes it to the next person.

6. From here, the person must write a sentence about the image they see. Again, anything that comes to mind.

7. This continues for as long as you want, or until you run out of paper :) covering phrases and pictures and creating new ones as you go. In the end, you have a crazy "surrealist poem" of phrases and images. It is funny to see how the first person's idea has developed in image and word.

Try it sometime! It is a sure thing for a good time with friends ;)

Bisous!