Sequence/and/Fragment: The First Obstruction: An Excerpt

The Five Obstructions (Danish: De fem benspænd) is a 2003 Danish film by Lars von Trier and Jørgen Leth. The film is a documentary, but incorporates lengthy sections of experimental films produced by the filmmakers. The premise is that Lars von Trier has created a challenge for his friend and mentor, Jørgen Leth, another filmmaker. von Trier's favourite film is Leth's The Perfect Human (1967). von Trier gives Leth the task of remaking The Perfect Human five times, each time with a different 'obstruction' (or obstacle) given by von Trier. --From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Things to Consider:

Sequence/Fragment/Long Poem/Adaptation/Lyric/Experiment/Tradition/Image/Disputed/Unpopular/ Narrative/Disruption/Impressionistic/Embraced/Cross-Genre/Performance/Innovated/Plural/Found/Cinematic/Outlaw/Conventional/Cliché/Pedestrian/Failure/Oral/Said/Device

The website is a place where writers might find visual prompts, essays, and links of interest. Students are welcome to contribute to our collection of prompts, essays, or links at any time. "Older Posts" at the bottom of the Home page will take you to additional pages of prompts.

The workshop will accommodate all forms of poetic expression a writer is willing to submit to critique. While the workshop theme and prompts toward 'Sequence and Fragment' will hopefully inform some of the work we'll read, all work is welcome.

The reading list functions as an initial group of writers that a student might investigate during the Sequence and Fragment workshop. As a student, I would also suggest you familiarize yourself with the work of writers invited to read in our Reading Series, the schedule of which can be found each semester on the CU Department of English on-line calendar. Readings, events, and other activities of the Creative Writing program, students, and faculty will also be posted to the Creative Writing @ the University of Colorado Facebook page.

If you’ve read something interesting, feel free to bring it to class, perhaps, share copies. I’d like our workshop to be organic and so develop as we add readings, direct or redirect our writing and reading habits, and work toward a productive creative space which contributes to a diverse writing community.

We’ll do our best to understand the writer’s, or performer’s, point of view, intent or avoidance of intent. We'll do our best to understand voice, form, departure, and other constraints and liberalizations without personalizing the work as we might our own. This workshop is not intended to accommodate poetry that is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ … I mean for the workshop to function under the auspices of what works (for the poem and poet) and what doesn’t work.