comments on exercise

Sunday night Alan Bern came over for our poetry group. The other member of the group had a bad ol' headache so missed out. After we workshopped a poem by Alan and a poem by me Alan admitted he hadn't come up with any clever writing exercises. As I'm rarely at a loss, really, I pushed my poem across the table to Alan and told him to fold it in half lengthwise. I did the same to his. What remained of his poem is what you see below. Now, I said, write a poem using the words/line fragments as you see them on your paper. Complete the lines. I used Alan's as beginnings.