A lot of you have been asking, so here’s a little more about how I craft a klepto-collaborative poem.

My most recent efforts (available in the previous posts) for TEDx have been created from TED Talks by writing down words, word pairings and phrases as the event is going on in real-time.  During the breaks, I use the words like puzzle pieces–whose shapes adapt to any piece they’re put next to–to juggle the text and ideas around until I have something that I like, that’s different enough from the speaker’s usage to be fresh, unexpected, inventive, and yet still hold some of the spirit and flavor of each speaker’s intent.  I only have so much time during the breaks to play with the building block puzzle pieces of text, and then after the very last speaker of the day I have to go right up to the stage and read…