The Magic Box exercise

Posted on June 30, 2005

This is our first assignment for the creative writing class. (FYI: We will spend two weeks on poetry, two weeks on a short story, and two weeks on a screenplay.) There is no class tonight, so the assignment is done online through Oncourse.

The assignment is to take an imaginary box – a magic box – and pull things out of it. We make a list of 20 – 25 items we pull from the box. We are supposed to note and common threads or themes, stuff like that. From the list we are supposed to make a poem 8 – 10 lines long using items from the list. The poem doesn’t have to rhyme or even make sense. From what I understand, the assignment is just the list and the poem. I’m not sure if we are supposed to turn in notes regarding the themes, etc. Hopefully, I’ll find out when I go on Oncourse later tonight.

Anyway, here is what I pulled from the magic box:

• pigeon
• sand castle
• Bullwinkle
• slot car
• blanket
• a wad of chewing gum
• keychain with keys
• one sock
• a dollar bill and .36 in change
• canvas sneakers
• 2 D-cell batteries
• lantern
• raccoon
• a bullfrog
• a salamander
• sand
• grass-stained jeans
• a bumper sticker for an amusment park
• a family photo album from 20 years ago
• a rosary
• Ganesh
• styrofoam peanuts
• a light blue latex balloon
• a 64 color crayon set with worn and broken crayons
• a small tub of paste
• construction paper
• $64,000 Pyramid game show with Dick Clark

I actually made two poems. I would have made a few more, but I ran out of time before going to work.

Scenes from an age

By the light of a hissing lantern
The bullfrog jumps over a keychain
while the salamander scurries away.
A pair of grass stained jeans
tossed next to some canvas sneakers.
A young boy sleeps on the floor,
curled up in a blanket and bored with Dick Clark.

Things found in my room, circa 1975

Bunk beds loom over a toy racecar track.
Unmade beds with a bumper sticker exhorting
“Pike’s Peak or Bust”.
A fort made from a blanket, comic books nearby.
A wad of chewing gum stuck to some sneakers
Construction paper, paste, crayons ground into the carpet,
implements of artwork strewn about the floor,
like so many faded memories.

Those are the first attempts. We’re supposed to revise them, but I kind of like them the way they are. We’ll see.

Related posts:

1. Star Trek Haiku – Assignment: Earth
2. Back to School
3. Définissons d’amitié
4. Review Haiku – Schindler’s List
5. Some updates

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