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The following is a selection of transcriptions from an exquisite corpse exercise I conducted last fall, when I was a substitute teacher in a New York college English immersion class.

For those of you who do not know what it is, or perhaps have it confused with the Andrei Codrescu-edited journal of the same name, an exquisite corpse is a group-written poem or story in which each person writes a line of the story and passes it along to the next person, revealing only the previously written line. This is usually accomplished by folding the paper, which results in an accordion-like text bearing a ridiculous, multivoiced piece of writing that takes unusual twists and turns.

Conduct this exercise with students who are from Peru, Egypt, Dominican Republic, the former Soviet Union, Poland, and China, however, and this parlor game takes on a whole other character. Students who were used to struggling with written English got to curse, they got to be stupid, they loosened up from their drills upon drills of five-paragraph essay writing. They treated themselves to ridiculous utterances, everyday talk, flirting, and the loopy, off-kilter narrative.

The stories and poems we made up that day in class, in groups of five or six students, always stuck in my mind. You can see as each line changes authors to keep the conversation going. You may see, as I do, how the form kept up the tension for each other, a desire to keep the writing interesting.

When I read them aloud at the end of the day, tears of laughter filled the classroom, and students were proud of their tales of woe and worry and sexual escapades. If I can also hazard another guess, they also got to poke fun at themselves and their oftentimes foible-filled English, spoken by a straight-man-slash-substitute professor.

So here goes. I asked these student-authors if I could publish them, warts and all, and they agreed, provided I give them the link on the Web. I have picked five out of the twenty corpses produced, and typed exactly what the students wrote. In the proud tradition of O Holy Cow!, Phil Rizzuto's found poetry masterpiece, I have provided titles for each.




May and the Lovers

May is a student who from England.
She is studying at CUNY right now.
But she is going to drop out as soon as possible.
Nobody can help him at that time.
Suddenly she remembered one person, and this
person can help her.
But it was a dream while he was sleeping lovely and
peacefully.
He saw his parents and wife in the dream.
And they all say something to him, but he
did not remember.
"Yo, what the fuck are you doing with my girl?" he
remembered. But that's only what he could remember.
And he just realized where he is!
And he realized he is not the only lover
for his girlfriend.
He wants to know who are they.
I know exactly who they are. They are Mr. Bush and
Gore.



Work Ethos with Sister

I need to go to work tonight
But, I will go to bed early tonight
Because I have to wake up early tomorrow morning
I had to get dressed nice.
We were leaving for my wife office party.
After that we had dinner and we went home.
When I got home I took a hot bath
and I went to bed. I slept all night
then you will have a bad dream something like that.
Women in the movie that kill her husband
was found in California a few weeks ago.
And then it was on TV for the first time.
When her parents saw it on TV they were surprised.
She was naked on TV.
John likes to see those kinds of naked women.
His mind was so dirty that's why he wasn't to see that.
She showed him all of it.
Even the dirty parts.
No, stop talking about it. I don't like it
but your sister told me you really like it.
Did my sister tell you our private secrets?
Sure, because we are best friends.
I don't know why they think something different.
That's not your problem, leave it for them.



Voyeurism

In 1994 my grandfather arrived to U.S.
when I was 14 years old
I met the girl who changed my life
She's the only person that don't care I am gay.
So I started to bring gays to the house
and have parties in the house with music
the music was so loud the neighbors called the police
when the police came to ring the bell
I was pleasing myself with my boyfriend
when my mother found me in the bathroom
I was completely undressed with the neighbor next door
Everybody come see why we're naked!
and they started enjoying themselves, too

That was nasty for me to do that
you might say, but getting naked
and getting caught by your neighbor is sure fun.
Because they can come over and we could have fun
by dancing in the house only the two of us.



Précis with Interior Dialogue

I saw the coolest movie yesterday.
I was watching a movie with
my brother and then
I went out to get some beer.
Soon, I will drink all the beer that I had bought
and get all drunk.
After that they start to decorate the Christmas tree.
I went to help them when I fall down in front of
the car and my boyfriend saw me.
you stole the car from someone else.
but you are my accomplice of robbing the car.
No, you are crazy. I don't know you.
STOP pretending you were my neighbor.
I'm your neighbor, so what do you want from me?
I want to help you clean the house.
OK! you can start cleaning my room.
How about bathroom?
No. It's a dirty place to visit.
OK! We can go to the park to take those pictures
you want to show the other people when you were taking those pictures.
Yes. I will also picture them on the streets
when they will go there.
I told you before, at night only.
No! It's not enough. I want more of it.
Come on. It's done. I'm tired. I don't want more.



Mike's Torment

Mike goes home early today.
And he must go to bed.
He has the power to do anything.
He was going to eat some food.
Finally, he did eat and he did go to bed.
But he can't sleep.
He decided to read a boring book. Maybe it can
make him fall in sleep.
Finally, he fell in sleep. After for a while, he saw
his girlfriend with someone else on the street.
He wanted to call her but at that time he
woke up. He didn't see anything, he knew that just
a dream.
Maybe he should call her now, he didn't
call her for a long time.
And he fell in sleep very deeply.
He hopes he would never wake up.