Exquisite Corpse: Collaborative Class Exercise

A pen and ink drawing of a muscular figure with a monstrous head. It is clenching a pipe in its mouth with a tiny woman in the bowl of the pipe. It has a fat right hand that is holding a tiny, dancing woman wearing a veil. Its left hand is shaped like large fountain-tipped pen.

Exquisite Corpse is a traditional parlor game that gained popularity with Surrealist artists in the 1920s. The rules of the game were simple: write a phrase on a piece of blank paper, fold the paper over to hide the phrase, then pass it onto the next person to do the same. After each person took a turn, the end result was read aloud. Strung together these random phrases transformed into an abstract poem that undoubtedly surprised and delighted its creators. The end product was also representative of the Surrealist notion of tapping into the unconscious mind and disrupting rational order. [1]

The title of this game is attributed to a line from a seminal creation: "Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau." Translation: "The exquisite corpse will drink the young wine."

The game was also adapted for the visual arts. In this version, each person takes a turn drawing an individual body part (or representative image). The collective result is an abstract figure that defies single imagination. Many well-known artists experimented with this form and continue to do so today.[2]  

In a version of the Exquisite Corpse game, players decide on a format to structure the individual phrases. For instance, this is an example of a poem in the form of Adjective, Noun, Verb, Adjective, Noun, created by the Academy of American Poets staff:

Slung trousers melt in a roseate box.
A broken calendar oscillates like sunny tin.
The craven linden growls swimmingly. Blowfish.
A glittering roof slaps at crazy ephemera.[3]

Any combination (adjective, noun, adverb, verb) can be used for the line. Linking words, articles, and prepositions can be added later so the phrases flow. Lastly, the resulting poem should be titled and read aloud to the class. This performative element is essential to the game and it is bound to generate a lot of laughter.       

Exquisite Corpse can be played as an ice-breaker or team-building game. It is accessible to a range of ages and applicable to multiple disciplines (English, ESL, art, history, psychology).