National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month. You probably knew that. It’s the only thing that’s been in the news recently.

I have a resource for you. It’s a poem. I mean, in the sense that anything is a poem.

This post is a poem.

Especially if
I take the time
to break it up
and write it
like this
so gentle, and pure
as the orchid bud in June

Huh? What the fuck does that mean?

Hey, it’s poetry, baby! It don’t mean shit. In fact, you’re still in the poem right now. This part, where I’m telling you you’re in the poem is still part of the poem. So is the rest of this.

Here is a poem you might get some use from. It’s called A Jar of Balloons or the Uncooked Rice by Matthew Yeager. I’m not going to copy and paste it here as you will understand why when you see it. It’s just a series of questions. Hundreds, at least.

It starts off like…

And then it goes on and on and on.

What does this have to do with magic?

First off, it’s valuable simply as a resource of questions and concepts that may be interesting for people to talk about. In turn you can build on those ideas to suggest different avenues to explore with people presentationally.

Or you can just use the poem as I have done as something of an Unknown Personal generator.

The nice thing about it is, this is a poem that exists. It’s a thing in the real world. You can say, “There’s this poem I found recently, and I think it’s pretty interesting. And I want to try something with it and you in particular. I’m not sure I could do it with someone else.” And it is a real poem, from a real poet, with a real history. It’s not some made up magic-y thing.

Since we’re still quarantining at this moment in time, I had my friend go to the poem and scroll down and stop and read the first question she saw.

Was your Christmas tree (if you had one as a child) fake or real?

Answer: Real

We did this four more times. Her scrolling around and stopping wherever she wanted and reading the first question that came up. I had her make note of the answers on a piece of a paper as she went.

Who is your wealthiest relative?

Answer: Grandpa William

Do you own, currently, and furniture you’ve found on the street?

Answer: No

How many people from high school do you keep in touch with?

Answer: 6

Do you ever mess with the button inside the fridge that makes the light go off and on, just press it flat a few times?

Answer: Yes

Obviously each question brought out some level of discussion as well.

At the end she had a list:

• Real

• Grandpa William

• No

• 6

• Yes

“Now, look, I probably could have gone and researched any one of the individual questions in that poem to see what your answer would be. But I couldn’t have researched all of them. And even if I could, I couldn’t have known you would randomly stop on these five questions, in this order, out of the thousand questions in the poem. ‘Real, Grandpa William, No, 6, Yes’ is like a code, completely unique to you. Like your DNA. It’s something neither of us could have predicted before all of this. You know me. You know I’m not psychic. I don’t even believe in psychics. And that’s why this is so crazy to me….”

I drew her attention back to the little clear box I’d pointed out when we first started and I revealed what was inside.

As you can probably imagine, this was a real mindfuck. She told me she immediately went back and rewatched the recording of our interaction because she was certain I must have distracted her at some point to put the piece of paper in the little box. Of course she found nothing of the sort. That’s the reason I had her record the process—to eliminate that Easy Answer.

I had been somewhat concerned she would just get 5 yes/no questions. My plan was either to tell her to go to a non yes/no question for the fifth one, or just add a parenthetical to one of her answers. For example if she had the question, “Were you allowed to watch R-rated movies as a child?” And she said yes and that her dad let her watch Friday the 13th and other horror movies. I would have written: Yes (Friday the 13th). Or something along those lines.

As I said, I think the poem has value as just a general resource as well. Things to talk about, ideas to explore, things to predict. And it doesn’t need to be just a video chat trick like described above.

That’s it. End of poem.

Nope… now it’s over for real.

The end.

That was part of it too.