5 experiments

Hi Everyone. First of all, I'm sorry this wasn't posted earlier. I thought I had put it up before I left town, and didn't look at the blog again until I got back yesterday. If you have already started your experiment (and I see that some of you have already posted), don't worry if it doesn't exactly match what I'm suggesting here. These are just guidelines/possibilities.

These five experiments are inspired by Borges' story "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote," and are designed to make you think about what an author is and what an author's relationship to a text is.

1. The Babelfish Experiment. Take a text (preferably one that you wrote), either a poem or prose, and translate it into another language using a computer translation service such as Babelfish. Then, using the same translator, translate it back into English. Edit the results as you see fit to create a new text.

2. The Homophonic Translation Experiment. Find a poem or prose passage written in a language you don't know, but which you can pronounce. (Here's a famous poem in French that you can try, "Le bateau ivre" by Rimbaud.) Then translate the poem into English words by sound. For example, "le bateau ivre" might become "lib a toe ever."

3. The Memory Experiment. Attempt something similar to what Pierre Menard attempted with Don Quixote: rewrite a poem or story you like, aiming to reproduce it as accurately as possible, but without copying it. It other words, sit down and write someone else's poem or story from memory.

4. The Copying Experiment. This may not seem very creative, but it can be surprisingly thought-provoking. Choose a poem or prose passage that you like and copy it out, word for word. Proofread for accuracy. As you write, think about why the author chose each word. As a variation, allow yourself to alter one word in each sentence.

5. The Remake Experiment. This exercise is a both more ambitious and more open-ended. Choose a poem or story you like and "remake" it with a different setting, point-of-view, or form. For example, rewrite Lorrie Moore's story from the point of view of the nurse, or rewrite a Shakespearean play for the 21st Century, or turn the plot of your favourite movie into a poem.