h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is a little trick I've used when trying to create a poem/song/creative prose.

I suppose it's kinda similar in spirit to the famous random cut-out technique mentioned in the Guide Entry A701001 advocated by William S. Burroughs and David Bowie.

And it's great fun and really easy!

All you do is open up the word processor application on your PC. (MicroSoft "Word" or similar.)

Then, with a blank page open, place your hands on the keyboard covering as many letter keys as possible, and start randomly hitting keys. Try closing your eyes or deliberately hitting between the keys. Try twisting your hands over and around themselves as you do this to produce unusual and varied combinations of letters.

You have to remember to avoid the numbers and function keys - but hit the space bar regularly, so that the "words" you are creating are quite short. The longest being, say, eight or nine letters long.

Then, when you've got a good few paragraphs of gobbledeegook...

Run it through the Spell Checker!

You'll be really surprised at some of the wonderful, forgotten words that get thrown up, and you'll find yourself extracting all kinds of strange, erratic meanings from your new, random poem.

It obviously won't come out all finished and rhythmic, like! You need to chop and delete things round a bit. But it will give you a good start.

This is one I've just done... Took around fifteen minutes.

Doesn't have a title yet, it strikes me that it could be about a girl leaving a dysfunctional relationship with a stifling partner. But that's open to interpretation!

I just love the way that it appeared from nowhere, from random keystrokes and a soul-less computer program.

Here it is:

Choose to oil your knives.
His hug like a weed.
A deluge. A fog.

Laugh to the sky's edge.
Oaths fade and tear.
His bulky nude aura is reborn.

An icy ouburst, an echo, you wept.
An elf in your pocket,
Spoofing movies, sucking sour milk.

Move! Stay safe.
Swing the axe. Poor pig.
Your view. Your song. Your day.

Avoiding the oaf, your fangs
Gouge a stiff axis
Across the looming acrid sky.

Hey! I like that! Up to now I've always regarded Spellchecker as "the enemy" ... this puts a whole new spin on things!

Haiku:

It was to correct,
But use it to shape the words
Crash! The poem has come!

Have you given it a try yet?

I'd love to read some examples from other people having a go!