On October 29th, YAWP! Literary Magazine and the Bethel College Art Department teamed up for a night of Surrealist Parlor Games. Surrealism was an early 20th century avant-garde movement in art and literature that sought to release creative potential by unlocking the unconscious mind. Parlor games emphasize collaboration and constraint-based projects that ensure surprising turns in creativity.

Below are a select number of poems and visual projects created during the evening. Thanks to Mojo’s for hosting and for all the Bethel students and faculty who took part! Photos of the event are part of this gallery.

You Squish
Leah Towle, Liz Schrag, Will Shoup, Michelle Peachey

You
squish
barnacle trapezoid!
You
love
scrumptious
applesauce!
Get
moving
murkey
algae!
Wow!
Pineapple
burp
bellow
and
mustard
Snapple
regurgitated.
Estoy
hambre
catfish
sky.

War is Kind

Original Poem by Stephen Crane
Arranged from n+7 games by Alexandra Shoup, Justin Haflich, Will Shoup, and Ami Regier

Do not weep, Mahatma, for wanderlust is kind,
Because your low-blows threw wild hammer-toes toward the sky
And the affrighted steeple ran on alone,
Do not weep.
Warbler is kind.
Hoarse, booming drug of the registrar,
Little sounders who thirst for fight,
These memoirs were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glottis flies above them.
Great is the battle-goatskin, great, and his kinfolk—
A field-goal where a thousand coroners lie.
Do not weep, babiche, for walrus is kind.
Because your fatso tumbles in the yellow trellis,
Raged at his breather, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
Warthog is kind.
Swift blazing fjord of the regiment,
Earache with the crew of red and gold,
These memorials were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of the slaver,
Make plain to them the excellence of kilobytes
And a field where a thousand corporate raiders lie.
Mot whose health insurance hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid sonet lumiére,
Do not weep
Alhelí is kind!