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Every semester, when we start to look at poetry in my Intro To Lit classes, I have the class fill out a quiz, just to see what kind of answers they'll give me -- this is after a talk about clichés and 'generic descriptions' and how creative writers generally need to go beyond the first response that pops into their minds. I thought I might toss it up here to see how you might answer, if you want to play...
Here's your quiz. Please put all your books under your desk, and no talking:
What color is fear?
What sound does affection make?
What texture does Autumn have?
What shape does a conversation make?
What fabric is a kitten made of?
What noise is made by curiosity?
What is the smell of knowledge?
How do you punctuate life?
What does death taste like?
If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it, what kind of tree is it?
Here's your quiz. Please put all your books under your desk, and no talking:
What color is fear?
What sound does affection make?
What texture does Autumn have?
What shape does a conversation make?
What fabric is a kitten made of?
What noise is made by curiosity?
What is the smell of knowledge?
How do you punctuate life?
What does death taste like?
If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it, what kind of tree is it?
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From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Yellow.
What sound does affection make?
Purrrrrrrr......
What texture does Autumn have?
Dry leaves crunching
What shape does a conversation make?
Imagine a large cloud, perhaps from an atomic bomb, only bigger
What fabric is a kitten made of?
Fur.
What noise is made by curiosity?
Hmmmmmm.....
What is the smell of knowledge?
Edison didn't say that invention is 99% perspiration for nothing...
How do you punctuate life?
? --- !
What does death taste like?
Arsenic.
Well, you asked. :-)
From:
no subject
A dead one. Or a very clumsy ent.
What does death taste like?
That tree? Or possibly chicken. That's traditional.
From:
no subject
Gray.
What sound does affection make?
A hum, almost a purr.
What texture does Autumn have?
Crunchy.
What shape does a conversation make?
Round.
What fabric is a kitten made of?
Cashmere.
What noise is made by curiosity?
Honk?
What is the smell of knowledge?
Old dusty books.
How do you punctuate life?
With a strong, firm period.
What does death taste like?
Ripe cherries.
If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it, what kind of tree is it?
Pine. It ached to be closer to the ground.
From:
no subject
A. Reddish gray.
What sound does affection make?
A. Smoosh
What texture does Autumn have?
A. Crisp, rough, and dry.
What shape does a conversation make?
A. Star mesh. [Think of star topology with all points connected with one another.]
What fabric is a kitten made of?
A. Mohair.
What noise is made by curiosity?
A. Gasp.
What is the smell of knowledge?
A. Cinnamonfaction.
How do you punctuate life?
A. With exclamation points.
What does death taste like?
A. Coppery.
From:
If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it, what kind of tree is it?
Ash.
From:
no subject
What color is fear? Gray, cold and damp like mold on the underside of a leaf.
What sound does affection make? A steady hum, warmer and lower than the 60hz we hear everywhere
What texture does Autumn have? Crisp: apples, leaves, crunching first frost
What shape does a conversation make? depends on the people, but usuall shaped like an elephant in a snake, all the mass and energy at one end or the other
What fabric is a kitten made of? Velour! And swansdown
What noise is made by curiosity? A bubble popping, someone skipping
What is the smell of knowledge? Subtle, like the dust of dark chocolate
How do you punctuate life? Question marks, ellipses, and smiley emoticons
What does death taste like? Mold behind a wall
If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it, what kind of tree is it? Dead
From:
no subject
Black. A black hole of ignorance.
2. What sound does affection make
The sound of water pouring in mugs of tea.
3. What texture does Autumn have?
The texture of the pages of a dear old book which never fails to entertain on rainy days
4.What shape does a conversation make?
A maze. You never know were you’re going to end up. If you’re going to get stuck somewhere you don’t want to, get what you want or just turn in circle without getting anywhere
5. What fabric is a kitten made of?
Hypoallergenic synthetic fur…
6. What noise is made by curiosity?
Mewing suddenly interrupted. Curiosity killed the cat.
7. What is the smell of knowledge?
The smell of markers on a white board.
8.How do you punctuate life?
With the sound of heels on a wood floor. Sometimes at slow pace, sometimes faster, sometimes running, silence between the steps.
9. What does death taste like?
Tastes like chocolate. It's usually bitter with regrets, but it can also sometimes be sweetened by freedom or money.
10.If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it, what kind of tree is it?
A sad and lonely one. An older lady tree during a scorching heat. It’s the summer, and all the other trees in the forest are getting a tan and greener than green leaves but she is old and sick and no one cares.
From:
no subject
Cowardice is yellow, or feathery white, but fear itself is leaden grey.
What sound does affection make?
Burbly conversational.
What texture does Autumn have?
Oh that's easy, rustly-crackly, like newly fallen leaves.
What shape does a conversation make?
That depends on the conversation, surely?
What fabric is a kitten made of?
Fur... is that a trick question? Fur with tiny prickles of new teeth and claws.
What noise is made by curiosity?
"Hmmmm."
What is the smell of knowledge?
Old paper, old polish, new paper and enthusiasm.
How do you punctuate life?
Life was a US publication, so I'd expect them to use Chicago.
What does death taste like?
Bitter aloes sicklied over with artificial banana.
If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it, what kind of tree is it?
Most likely an apple tree, but some scholars suggest a pomegranate. I have always connected it with Hood's tree "where my brother set/ the laburnum on his birthday... the tree is living yet". That was a laburnum, but because of the context, I see it as a graveyard yew. A yew would be appropriate. I say it is Schroedinger's tree of the knowledge of good and evil, falling in the forest with nobody to hear, so nobody can say whether it's yew or pomegranate.
From:
no subject
The colour out of space.
What sound does affection make?
Squishy slaps.
What texture does Autumn have?
Football leather.
What shape does a conversation make?
x**2+y**2+2xy = 17
What fabric is a kitten made of?
Wool and paper bags.
What noise is made by curiosity?
Nasal urbles.
What is the smell of knowledge?
Old caffeine.
How do you punctuate life?
With coffin shaped full stops.
What does death taste like?
The beginning of a hangover.
If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it, what kind of tree is it?
Horizontal.
From:
no subject
affection is long and sustained notes -- like a cello.
Autumn is crunchy, like paper or silk taffeta.
A conversation is a circle, sometimes jaggy and jerky, sometimes smooth and flowing.
A kitten is made of soft knit fabric. With a pin left in.
Curiousity pings like a plucked viola string.
Knowledge smells like sandalwood and bay rum and lilacs and fresh-cut grass
Life is punctuated with ellipses and parentheses and run-on sentences.
Death tastes like dirt -- sometimes it's good clean dirt, sometimes it's polluted, sometimes it's rotten.
The tree is a birch tree, or maybe cottonwood.
From:
no subject
The old yellowed ivory of the fangs in a long-lived predator.
What sound does affection make?
A sucking *squealch*, as when a limpet attaches itself. With a follow up of *rumble*. (Like those subharmonics elephants make.)
What texture does Autumn have?
Rough and woven with sharp pointy bits sticking through where you least expect them, like a burlap sack.
What shape does a conversation make?
Conversations may make a slow, dripping, amorphous blob or a spreading cone, and sometimes a lightening bolt. But most often for me conversation is the shape of a tree.
What fabric is a kitten made of?
The fluff of milkweed pods sewn together with Thread of Excitement, with very sharp very tiny rose thorns woven around the edges.
What noise is made by curiosity?
The sound of eyebrows going up. A... crinkle. Or possibly the muffled thump or rattle of a wrapped gift being shaken.
What is the smell of knowledge?
Autumn leaves and wood smoke, with a dash of chilled air.
How do you punctuate life?
Asterisks, because there are so damn many footnotes and explanatory bits.
Also? Lots and lots of semicolons.
What does death taste like?
The sulfur of a burnt match.
If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it, what kind of tree is it?
I keep reaching, but this one just isn’t in my grasp. My words can’t wrap around it. I’ll keep trying. I’m too impatient to read the rest and I don’t want to read them until I’m all done so my head doesn’t get “influenced”.
From:
no subject
What color is fear?
White, like the skin around pursed lips or tightly clenched fists.
What sound does affection make?
The soft rasp of knuckles rubbing a cotton-clad shoulder.
What texture does Autumn have?
Crunchy on top and slippery-wet underneath, like a pile of leaves.
What shape does a conversation make?
One of mine? An endless spiral, coming round again and again to the sample points but never quite meeting.
What fabric is a kitten made of?
Mine was knitted out of silly string, the sticking-out bits going in all directions. But some of them come in satin, or velvet.
What noise is made by curiosity?
Mommy? Mommy? Mommy?
What is the smell of knowledge?
Rubber cement and that old purplish-blue copy ink
How do you punctuate life?
With parentheses.
What does death taste like?
Old vine zinfandel, just starting to sour.
If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it, what kind of tree is it?
White beech.
From:
no subject
2. the sound of smooth skin slipping over raspy stubble. the sound of windbreakers crunching together.
3. the texture of an crisp apple, the texture of line-dried clothing.
4. one of those maps with the perpetual offshoots, sort of like the shape of a particularly healthy family tree.
5. molecular fabric, like teeny tiny bubble wrap.
6. a nose sniffing the air
7. that smell of spring and fall, the smell of earth in the air, riding a crisp breeze (it is the smell I associate most readily with being in school; when i smell it, i feel like i should be somewhere on campus).
8. with parentheses, like V. Woolfe in To the Lighthouse
9. Like breathing in the gas at the dentist's office.
10. There is no tree.
From:
First thoughts...reserving my right to revise.
I’ve only experienced fear upon waking from a nightmare and once, at night, when my father had a small stroke. I believe fear is the same color as darkness….an absence of color actually.
What sound does affection make?
Sometimes when Don rubs my ear softly it makes an incongruously loud scratching noise in my ear.
What texture does Autumn have?
Crumbly, imagine good compost or peat.
What shape does a conversation make?
A single, calm, conversation between two people is wispy. Different sorts of conversations have different shapes. A break up is long and pounding like a waterfall. A fight is sharp and fast, more like a laser.
What fabric is a kitten made of?
To me they feel most like cashmere or pashmina which are both obtained from goats. Cats should have no relation to goat. However, they have an affinity for Sherpa lining also…a synthetic fiber designed to repel water and retain warmth which has the appearance of sheep’s wool. So I’m going with wool. Goat or sheep wool.
What noise is made by curiosity?
Easy one…curiosity is squeaky.
What is the smell of knowledge?
Graphite and clay. Particularly the graphite and clay in a Dixon Ticonderoga 25/10ths.
How do you punctuate life?
With an ellipsis….
What does death taste like?
I think death might be an amazing release regardless of the circumstances. This makes me think it tastes like the cleanest, freshest, most cool water consumed by a thirst starved man.
If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it, what kind of tree is it?
A secure tree. No need to have it’s existence witnessed.
From:
the muffled thump or rattle of a wrapped gift being shaken