I remember your attempt at this at Mays WOL night in Oldham,which had me and my friend speechless at how clever it seemd so as much as I would love to try this new form of poetry I am actually too scared of failure to do so!

Don't be afraid of failure - it's the way we learn!
Rather be afraid of success it ossifies you.

This one below is maybe more disintegrated and not as successful as Riverscape. Gonzo seems to think that the shuffle works best with natural phenomena a bit like an impressionist painting, But then, Gonzo a.k.a A Daftie a.k.a. Paul only seems to think.

Dead on arrival

These night lanes this my black drive dazzling
headlights wouldn’t change for a second or more
my channels moments only would hear the end
of the track

wouldn’t the lanes change or this a second
dazzling drive would end my moments these black
track channels hear my headlights only for more
of the night

track the headlights drive these channels hear the
lanes dazzling black moments only would or wouldn’t
my night change this end for a second
more of my

Perhaps Paul could post his here too to give people a different angle.

This is short also. Funny really - it makes complete sense.

Oops...here it is

Your long black curly hair it
shone in the light of a full moon.
Your teeth sparkled, behind which
dwelled those three little words
‘I love you’, before the night quickly
turned into day.

Behind your long black curly teeth
the light which shone in the words,
your hair it quickly turned, you of the
moon into day. Dwelled those three,
little before night I love.

Sorry about that...there we go...

Your long black curly hair it
shone in the light of a full moon.
Your teeth sparkled, behind which
dwelled those three little words
‘I love you’, before the night quickly
turned into day.

Behind your long black
full curly teeth
the light which shone in the words,
your hair it quickly turned, you of the
moon into sparkled day.
Dwelled those three,
little before night I love.

I like this shuffle thing. Something I did in similar terms with Billy Collins' piss-take 'Paradelle'. I then chopped and changed it and ended up with this:

I downpour the sugar after the trees
Felt pure in the morning of the glitter

Take off a smudge on a stream of sadness
A cold blank page by your clothes in winter

I desire imbecile things most side on to
The dark compromise of the twilight draft


I draft most on a blank morning
After a cold winter downpour

I take a page to compromise
The trees in a faint twilight smudge

The side-glitter of your sadness
In the dark sugar of the stream

Our clothes off by the desire
The pure felt of imbecile things

Well, so i tried too:

Zone One

The stench of privet sickens July;
if I could wish I'd choose the vermillian sky
of a moon of Jupiter, the cold
that freezes the breath into blocks of gold,
putting memories of another's days
into our blood's fires.

If privet fires vermillian into the sky
of our cold blood, of a breath of gold
I'd choose another's July of days
that freezes, sickens putting the stench into memories;
I could wish of the moon the blocks of Jupiter.

- a little liberal with the commas. And losing rhyme scheme and rhythm (and any vestige of sense!)

Sort of similar idea, but shuffling letters rather than words.

Delivery

Deliver live evil verily.
Eery eel, veiled elver.
Livery, ride eider eyrie.
Ire led revel Rev.
Veiled devilry eyed dei.
Eye dry, reviled drivel.
Red eyelid drily dire.
Yield vile devil, yield

The word is forwards in the first letter, backwards in the last letter of each line and all letters contained are in the title word.

God I hate this comment box. If you go outside to check on a reference your comment's gone forever. Anyway, as I was saying for the third time ...

Malcolm's 'Delivery' is not only an up and down acrostic which itself puts him in the company of many great poets who have dabbled with acrostics, but it's beautifully abstract, cubist, wordfinderish and far from being just words that don't make sense, actually challenges our perception of meaning and sits nice and uneasy waiting for a myriad individual interpretations.

Ricardo's job does exactly what the shuffle is supposed to do. It upsets our brains by the arithmeria process i.e. using the same words as different parts of speech ( as in his 'fires').
The bit about privets firing vermilion into the sky (I can't go back and quote directly as I'll lose this comment - Gonzo Sitemeister take note) shows this well.

Both are similar to what poets like Steven Waling try to do with their cut and paste techniques: they challenge conventional grammar and meaning and evoke at times new appreciations of the relationships between words.

This sort of poetry can sometimes work in a performance context but there the aural flow or soup seems to be what holds or repels the audience more than the uncomfortable sense which can just be dismissed as nonsense when it's actually 'other sense'.

Finally, if you are brave enough to take these sort of risks, you have to be prepared for some nobody pathologically stuck in 1820 telling you that it doesn't actually rhyme or scan or mean anything. A nonlinguistic response with the longest finger may seem appropriate on such occasions.

Sorry that should read paralinguistic. www.argotistonline.co.uk has some interesting unconventional poetry as does zafusy.

Thank you for your comments James. I have never tried to deliver Delivery in performance. Apart from my doubts about whether I could get my mouth round the 'words', I think that the acrostic works better visually.

As is probably obvious, I like playing with words and sounds and I have done sound poems in performance and found that it worked for me. (I have no real idea of what it did for the audience). The following one I like to perform in different accents. A rather stern Scottish presbyterian minister seems to suit well.

Thorpitude

Skill ivy to the brolig heure
Cur forstang tho it clive
Fung custove for sing crulling sime
Cud prustick villing nive


Fud custagavidge sorkily
Fud favit barramore
Yet fortasonich tithily
Cum carad konik dore


Far fortu later farid us
Cut fitti fitti cude
Faranupted tully fules
Tarrabered in the lude


By the way, you can get round the disappearing words problem in IE as well as Firefox. If you are using IE7 you can open WOL in another tab and toggle between the one you are working in and the one you are referring to without loss of data. If you are using earlier versions without the tabs, you can open a second copy of IE and open WOL in that. By adjusting the size of your windows you can have your working window and reference window alongside each other.

Very nice of you to reference my effort, Mr H.

But Shuffle AND acrostics!!! Be very very careful - that way madness lies!
(Joking, of course.)

Cut and Paste-ism...mmm. Sounds a bit Burroughs-ish and his Cut Ups. Ok for the '50s, but Bowie couldn't get it to work in the '70s and, well, it's a procedure for nostalgics by now, surely.

I've noticed some writers seem interested in l=a=n=g=u=a=g=e writers. Can't get further from Performance poetry with, say:

apple is shot nod
ness seen know it around saying
think for a hundred years
but and perhaps utter errors direct the point to a meadow........
(Lynn Hejinian)

though I suspect Ron Silliman would work anywhere: dip into his work on any page and Something will come up.

No, you can use all the 'techniques' you want, you can't beat good old empathetic imagination and the interface with reality/the world/life.
It's basically a mattar of: if it works, use it.

best wishes

and I did mean mattEr, but you knew that.

Can't resist this classic after all the discussions about sound poems and language. Enjoy!

A FRAFFLY IN STING GEM FOREGETHERINGS
Hevvyew red may mem was leddiw mogret?
Won mossted mit the stitcher weshens grimm.
Fay ness toof sinew. Glaretoof binner felp.
Off troll a m peng frit.
Netch rellah aywus quare turver wellmed
Aim fay fondoff yew.
Welph core smeddier chep.
Thet omcher kleshes wither coppet.
Rilleh quettex trod nerreh.
Krimmen chooker inyaw kawfy?

Moxeh Mideah,

Fraffly whizzuh dweeze end mest mewsing kwess chins twitch thensahs ercleah leh ez follayohs:

1. Hevvyew red may mem was leddiw mogret?
- Nayoh, ay hevnt, Chozz.
2. Won mossted mit the stitcher weshens grimm.
- Nottice grimmice etwoz.
3. Fay ness toof sinew. Glaretoof binner felp.
- Ness toof sinewtoo. Fcaws eweah annie nawmuss bwick.
4. Off troll a m peng frit.
- Welphyaw peng frit, alhev smawcav yah.
5. Netch rellah aywus quare turver wellmed.
- Aycunquet undsten. Doossitdine.
6. Aim fay fondoff yew.
- Ayoh, nayoh dint gayoh awlsawft onmi.
7. Welph core smeddier chep.
- Spuffekleh soup pah.
8. Thet omcher kleshes wither coppet.
- Nottezmuchez thez cuttns kleshwither woolpaypah.
9. Rilleh quettex trod nerreh.
- Epso lettleh.
10. Krimmen chooker inyaw kawfy?
- Nayoh, mekkitbleck, fewdint maind. Mget tinrothah pawtleh rind thitummeh, doe ncherno.

Yaws

Gems

Gems! Mewhird uahh ahbweek uahhs elhv. Myeh cam plehminsh tehyeru, pohht enge enntilmhin.

Mwahwxy

My Job as a designer and electronics service technician, for this purpose (Hartnell Shuffle) has served me well. The perfectionist has made me correct it, and add a verse. I apologise for using this thread as a virtual workbench.

Julian, I ask most humbly for the kings pardon, can you be the messenger.....and beware for the king can shoot from the hip as well ............


here goes the last version i promise!

thanks for all the fun


------------------------------

Anxious waiting rooms
Geno urinary
attacks of the tracts
unscratchable public scratch
Tense, a trusting couple
vacant supple limbs
fear came quickly formed
by shuffling shoes, this clinical assistance
arrives, form in hand
an unglamorous trouser wearing nurse
her defensive stance
Speaks guilt and disgust

Disgust attacks her,
Unscratchable shuffling limbs
Defensive, clinical
Tense, waiting
Geno Speaks Quickly
guilt wearing couple
Assistance fear formed
This arrives, unglamorous
and Came of trouser by trusting stance
Vacant shoes, nurse a supple hand
form
an anxious scratch
In tracts.
The urinary public rooms

Unglamourous public scratch
Waiting, Anxious, supple stance
Trouser disgust, her geno arrives
Defensive
Of Trusting fear and the couple
Wearing shoes in rooms
shuffling
Attacks clinical nurse limbs
Urinary tracts
An Assistance arrives quickly
Tense hand speaks ,a form formed vacant
Came this unscratchable guilt