The Spinanes' "Lines and Lines"/Imagery Warmups

Teaching an introduction to creative writing class, I wanted to try to get my students to begin probing their sensory worlds, to get a scent for the unsaid, for how much of our experience defies words, and how writing is (at least in part) the hunt for those ineffables (Eliot called it raiding the unspeakable). To coax the real into language...

Anyway, I asked them to write down the first smell that induced a memory for them. I asked them to write down a tactile experience that was memorable to them. I asked them to name a certain object that someone was wearing (it was a "zipper pull") and then we talked about how many things and events that surround us for which we don't know the words. I asked them to write an experience that they would advise someone not to try. Later, we played with those experiences as definitions of Poetry: "Poetry is not being the first one to fall asleep at a party," was one of them.

When I introduced the idea of tactile experiences, a line came to me from The Spinanes' song, "Lines and Lines"--"feel the stick of/legs leaving vinyl." All those "l's" sticking on our tongue! Thank you, Rebecca Gates.

"Lines and Lines" by The Spinanes

Listen closely for tires in the driveway
The voice in the stairwell, the steps in the hallway
Feel the warming come up through the floor
The click as the tape flips it`s intrinsic how he feels sick
Tell you I love you there`s no one else I`m thinking of
And all the hands that clasp mine are no match for your burning touch

Now I`m out back praying
Movement paved with me
A taste of me not on my knees
Fevered pitch that`s rising
From somewhere deep inside
It has a name I cannot place
All the time I waste
New mistakes I`ve made

Feel the stick of legs leaving vinyl
The sweat of closeness, the waves of nausea
Tell you I miss you there`s no one else I`m dreaming of
And all the lips that kiss me are no match for your fever touch

Now alone outside
The peace that comes with quiet
Blur lines of wires black in twilight
All the threats I take
And friends that I evade
Are penned up and in stillness wait
The ache is this my close
In ways he`ll never know

All your lines