I read Stein’s famous collection of experimental poetry, Tender Buttons, last spring in Graham Faust’s MFA poetry course. After reading her for a couple of days, we were to bring in an imitation of Stein’s idiosyncratic poetic methods, so I thought I might as well share what I came up with:
GLUT BUTTONS
TEMPERED
You can never flank a troll. If its temper meant to daze news, its tenderness tomorrows will surely headline surely with a surly gap. Questions to those questions to that which dies in footnotes. Yank or let the handle fly-black. Cinch your life for keeps sake.
EDGES
An edge surrounds its content under pressure. An edge is point B darkroom negative photos from life snapped to shack light upon starless slurs. An edge is an end, so bawl it in the mainline son. An edge being cryptic being asphalt beards and yellow turns blue tattoos. Naturally, the topiary will not hold. Naturally, will grow wild.
ARGUMENTS
Lengthen at will shank it it litters allies whose abstracts shone to part part way round that which will confound lost pros.
Seeing as I still can’t quite grasp what she does to create her very distinct and avant-garde style, my Stein imitations are a bit off. That’s to be expected from any imitation, however, but especially for Stein: the enigmatic ringleader of the Lost Generation. Still, I’d like to think that Glut Buttons does reflect some of the linguistic playfulness that Stein so masterfully uses throughout Tender Buttons; either way, it was a blast to give her style a go.
20th Century Literature 