Exquisite Corp. 220 is now available for download (pdf).

Unfortunately, due to the very subjective nature of poetry and the difficulty of even defining the word "poem", we do not consider any claims for poetry

Guinness World Records

Exquisite Corp. 220 tracks the mutation from harvesting personal data for profit unconsciously (by Facebook) to inviting personal participation for poetry consciously (by the 3words/poem project). The short story, which literally grows, mutates, out of the deleterious Facebook copyright policy, responds to the media coverage of events in Toronto leading up to the G8 and G20 summits in July 2010. Parts of the story were printed out and posted around Toronto during the G20 protests by people associated with the Poetic Interventions Project (h/t Shannon Maguire). The poems that follow were written on Facebook by the people above in response to status updates with three words per poem from the original story. The photos were by Laurie D. Graham. The numbers in the titles of each poem correspond to the number of people who contributed.

Samples of the project were previously published by derek beaulieu's NO Press and Warren Dean Fulton's Pooka Press.

A conversation on Wax Poetic / Vancouver Co-op Radio about the "Three Words Per Poem" project: 27 April 2011 https://archive.org/details/WaxPoeticApril27thWithGregoryBetts

Images of some of the posters at the Strega show:

80 – I Know What

you didn’t

know last summer you’re doing

the matrix like what I know

on or an or otherwise gordian

you don’t know what everyone

does in sleep

not sleep, not wistful dreams

not not not not

not summer

no what no known

no then free

no no do

I know what you did

I do not approve

what would happen

if I told you?

rob mclennan, Natasha Pedros, Stephanie Tingzon, Stacey Andrey, Michael Portelli, Eric Schmaltz, Priscilla Brett, James Millhaven

G60 – Write Songs Against

write songs against the wind

songwriters, the back of your guitar

your lover, the smile

the tiny breath suppressed

write songs against singing; then sing

again against ebony backgrounds

gaining on the quickly yellowing paper

write a fist

songs don’t succeed

sing songs against

write songs against poetry

the last round song

the synaptic curve of melody

the parallel parting of harmony

the reflexive arc of rhythm

the righteous round of rhyme

the arctic talk of time

the wavy groove of sound

the thump thump thump of the jackhammer

breaking up the street

time’s twenty four hours

sliding high

write songs against stall walls

the wrong sites

against rhyme and common sense

the heels of mud-soaked-sun-dried sandals

the curtains waffling in the breeze

against the grain, sand them lightly, apply a coat of shellac

and then rendition

against the status quo of status updates

anti-G20 police propaganda

songs irrelevant

songs against the machine

the forever final straw that keeps

the Right doing wrong

write songs against a ribbon for urinary infection

a yellow ribbon

up against the old oak tree

against all odds

Vanessa Place, Maria Damon, Amanda Earl, Linda Steer, Gary Barwin, Andrew Topel, Alice Robinson, Andrew Topel, Brian Bartlett, Slim Volumes, Catharine Heard, Jamie Reid, Slim Volumes, Kristen Peterson, Kathleen Betts, Tobey C. Anderson, Rob Budde, Pearl Pirie, Jami Kali, Nick Treanor, Warren Dean Fulton, Slim Volumes

52 – Open and Unfettered

chains upon the ground

a way out

won’t be found

or locked and chained

a hard-swallow

gulp next

discarded characters on the ground

waiting to be used

by an unlettered society

the Tibetan loses himself

to oneness and zeroness

writes his self-elegy

they embrace each other

with abandon

became slaves of passion

a con, a shell game, an illusion

folding unencumbered

from the heavy obstructed lines

design without function

open and unfettered

often and under-prepared

inconceivable overspending

on the G20 travesty

anxious and unlettered

road-sourcing

useless floating in October wind

Priscilla Brett, Kathleen Betts, Andréa Ledding, Warren Dean Fulton, Brian Bartlett, Tobey C. Anderson, Pearl Pirie, Rob Budde, John Barlow, Siobhan O’Flynn, Gary Barwin, Joseph Brown, Alice Robinson

1 – I’m looking for

my blood, again

I’m looking forward

an end to this sentence

for love, but I still haven’t found

a place to happen

a thesis statement

a chipped pretty picture

of sunshine and warmth

please, I’m looking, I lack

I’m looking minute

I’m looking for more

passion in home

the horizon line, the bottom of the well

temps perdu, my bearings

look

someone fill     the blanks

between      lines

in     story of my life

a jewel encrusted hawk

slaying a wren in flight: a frieze – a sky burial

a hawk and a handsaw

a lifetime of inspiration

I’m looking for love, you idiot

an end to this business

one more one hundred

myself in the mirror

the right question to my answer

spots of sunlight

things shine

despite this forestry

force’s fortress

that gold watch my other gave me

someone who really gets it

we can all get it but

I’m looking forward

those signs read

you are here

I found I

a bank with too many splinters

for words to dare enter

the place where I departed

when I find it

I’ll kiss you something to see

the end I’m looking for

searching for

yearning for

an answer

a solution, resolution

a long lost friend

my insanity, I seem to have

a long lost friend

my sanity, a strong tossed thread

a heart of gold

formidable

I’m looking for life’s secret decoder ring

the ward in forward, its dress code

of wrap-around white

I’m looking fortunate

Catherine Heard, Amanda Earl, Nicole Collins, Jacob Wren, Lisa Betts, JA Weingarten, Lauren Corman, Pam Edwards, Douglas Barbour, Nick Treanor, Carmen Racovitza, Kateri Lanthier, Priscilla Brett, Todd Bruce, Lynn McClory, Kinga Jakab, Susan Christian, Ted Betts, James Depew, Allison Sekuler, Alice Robinson, Warren Dean Fulton, Jeff Carpenter, Kathleen Betts, Andrew Topel, Sharon Honywill-Haddow, Pearl Pirie, Natalee Caple, James Yeary, Josephn Brown, Kim O’Gorman, Andréa Ledding, Linda Steer, Penn Kemp, Laurie Anne Fuhr