Poetry Experiment: Writing Between the Lines

Source: alcrego.tumblr.com

     This poetry writing challenge was authored by John Cotter for "What Sparks Poetry" a serialized feature at poetrydaily.com where poets explore experiences and ideas that spark new poems.
     PoetryBones members were asked to bring two poems to the session -- poems that they loved but that were also relatively new to them.  As Cotter suggested, they printed out the poems with triple spacing.  Here is how the prompts unfolded:

Poem Prompt: part 1

In the empty space between each line of the poem you brought to the session, write a response line of your own – a line that responds only to that one line of the poem.  Write like this for 10 minutes.

Poem Prompt: part 2

Once you have a response line for each line of your poem (let’s call it poem A), discard Poem A and build a new poem of your own (let’s call it Poem B),  made only from the response lines. Write like this for 10 minutes. Note: if you feel like your Poem B is evident, then repeat the challenge with your second poem. In this way, you will be writing two new Poem B’s.

Sample Poems

The sample poems aren't direct products of the prompt. Instead they are poems that harken to another poet's style or rhythm or voice.  For example, for me, Danez Smith's poem "my president" echoes Walt Whitman's "I Hear America Singing" for its shoutouts to everyday American people in their states of work or honesty or valor.  It favors a few of Whitman's "Os" like O captain! My captain!   It even makes me think of Carl Sandberg's FROM THE PEOPLE, YES, but I can't think what, exactly.  Can you?  Let me know.

Something Extra

PoetryBones writers choose from these poets/works:
​​Philip Larkin 
Paul Lawrence Dunbar
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin "Swineherd"
Mary Oliver "Wild Geese"
Charles Simic "Empire of Dreams"
Gerard Manley Hopkins "Spring and Fall"
Theodore Roethke - "The Geranium"
Lucille Clifton "Won't You Celebrate With Me?" 
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper "The Slave Auction" 
Chen Chen "Night Falls Like a Button" 
Brynn Saito "How to Tell the Truth" 
Maya Angelou "Phenomenal Woman" 
Chief Dan George "My Heart Soars"
William E Stafford "At the Un-National Monument along the Canadian Border"
Anna Swir "Happy as a Dog's Tail" 
Solmaz Sharif "Beauty"
Joy Harjo "How to Write a Poem in a Time of War"

Writer's Feedback

—Writing response lines was insight to the inner thoughts of the reader
—This exercise riggers inner thoughts and you are in the world of the poem more
— Imitation writing stretches my writing because it proposes words I wouldn’t have chosen
— I found myself responding to the lines but still staying in the storyline I was developing, meaning I was developing the "thread" of poem B while I was simultaneously influenced by the lines of poem A 
—Confused while I was writing.  Not being a poet or not ever imitating another poet, I wanted to know where the exercise was headed or why we were doing what we were doing
— Didn’t know if I was responding to the content or the emotion or what specifically in each line

Share your experiences in the comments section.