Exquisite Corpses: Introduction

I first learned about Exquisite Corpses in my Introduction to Creative Writing class with Colleen Abel. The idea is to write in a group. Once you have the group you come up with a title and the first line of the Corpse. After that each member of the group writes the next line of the Corpse. They, then, fold the paper over so only the line that they last wrote can be seen and pass it to their neighbor. The neighbor will then add a line to the Corpse, fold the paper so only their line can be seen, and then pass it to their neighbor. This will continue for as long as the group decides to continue.

As you can probably guess, the results can be extremely hilarious or extremely profound or both. What will follow are the first Exquisite Corpses I was ever involved in. I want to reiterate that these are a group effort. And because of that I want to also let you know who was involved. Not all of the people listed below were there the day we composed these Corpses, but because they left an indelible impression on the class, I feel they deserved to be mentioned as well.

Here are the writers of the Exquisite Corpses that will follow: Colleen Abel, Toni Alioto, Abigail Bong, Carol Brandt, Colleen Cavanaugh, Daniel Defenbaugh, Paul Fischer, Lorilei Flores, Gabriel Goodman, Amber Graham, Nathanyel Langreder, Quoc Quan Le, Okikuni Okabe, Matt Roeder, Jake Schultz, Shira Stein, Taylor Wall, Jess Wichman, J Courtney Wilkerson, Amanda Williams, and Mikail Winters.

This first set of Exquisite Corpses went by the title “Melloh Yelloh” and had the first line “Yay! It’s eight o’ clock?!” (although you will see the punctuation possibly change over Corpses). Writing ties people together, and this class is tied together by what we did in this class together and I’m proud to be a part of it.

Stay tuned for the actual Exquisite Corpses!