Songwriting Without Boundaries (23 page)

Your turn.

A Frisbee is a zipper

GREG BECKER:
The Frisbee flew through the air and zippered up the wind behind it as it spun itself forward.

Frisbee spinning wildly, crazy hippie disk toy on acid trip, barefoot flying from the patchouli fingers of torn jeans, grown child in the grassy sunny field of irresponsibility in the parking area for summer concert, with bandana dog chasing it, slobbering chewing it. Zipper on the hoodie of the Frisbee player with cracker and Dorito crumbs in the pockets …

KRISTIN CIFELLI:
A Frisbee is a zipper that opens your grown-up world back to your kid planet.

With a simple toss of the Frisbee, he forgot all about the stress of his job, bills to be paid. The freeness of the Frisbee unzipped him from planet grown-up back to a fun and carefree kid-planet.

Both Greg and Kristin transformed
zipper
from a noun to a verb. Part of
zipper
’s family is the actions it can perform. Note Greg’s “sunny field of irresponsibility,” the second form of expressed identity, “irresponsibility is a sunny field.” And Kristin’s “planet grown-up,” using an adjective-noun collision (
grown-up
is the adjective).

Now, try your own.

A poem is an evening

ANNE HALVORSEN:
A poem is an evening on the front lawn.

First stanza myrtle green, quaggy underfoot with sinking toes in the new-mown smell renewed by a flash of thundershower; then four lines for the dusky, emerging dance of the two facing silhouettes … finally leaning in to lift and roll the frayed badminton net, taste of longing versed with after-rain, rhythms synched, first firefly fingers touch …

KRISTIN CIFELLI:
A poem is an evening quietly settling your day inside you, and feeding you a hearty dinner.

Twilight—after the sun sets, the poem brings us to gorgeous gentle light, and eventually to starlight. Its rhymes and patterns are constellations of words in the night sky. Sparkling, twinkling …

Kristin’s “Its rhymes and patterns are constellations of words in the night sky” creates two layers of expressed identity: The first version—
rhymes are constellations
—and the second version—
constellations of words
. A version of
words are constellations.
Anne’s “taste of longing” is also a lovely example of the second version.

Your turn.

Summer is the captain

ANDREA STOLPE:
Summer strode in as a decorated captain, marked by the stripes of all the knowledge and experience I’d accumulated during the year.

Come July I’d have T-shirt tan lines and wrinkles at the corners of my eyes from squinting in the blazing beach sun. This summer I’d avoid the french fry station and the burger flipping, and move right up into the position of lifeguard. I was sixteen, and all I wanted to feel was the sand dust layer on my toes and a stingy layer of salt. Grape slushes dripped down the chins of toddlers and …

SUSAN CATTANEO:
Summer is the captain, ordering the daylight to stand at attention until way past 9 p.m.

Clouds march across the azure sky, mosquitoes hover on helicopter wings dive-bombing the man’s white skin, traffic parades down main street …

Andrea becomes summer, and her ninety-second exercise gives an account of the stripes. Susan welcomes the military family into her ninety seconds. Nice.

You try.

A restaurant is a wineglass

ANNE HALVORSEN:
A restaurant is a wineglass, its bouquet slipping out with satiated diners as she pulls open the door …

Standing at the top of spiral steps stemming from the round, darkened space, her eyes drinking in the open skylight, the streetlamps sparking the walls of glass … astonishing scents flooding her, loamy earth … a pastiche of sweet spice, baking bread, herbed oils, sliding her down the steps into the center of it all, eating the perfume even before she finds her feet enough to teeter toward her friends …

SUSAN CATTANEO:
A restaurant is a wineglass, full of rosy patrons whose laughter spills over into the open streets …

Waiters flow through the crowded room, the chatter of silverware on china plates, music pours out from the speakers, the flicker of candlelight making crystal patterns on white tablecloths …

Both Anne and Susan invite the
wineglass
family into the restaurant. Find as many
wineglass
family members as you can in their pieces.

Now write your own.

DAY #8

EXPRESSED IDENTITY:
NOUN-NOUN COLLISIONS

So now you’re an old pro at expressed identity. Today, reverse the nouns and see what you can get.

As usual, write a sentence or short paragraph for each collision. Then do your ninety seconds.

A cargo ship is a wince

JESS MEIDER:
The cargo ship’s wince from the yellow explosion freeze its face into the night.