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WRITING POETRY WITH THE OPPOSITE HAND by Joel Sattler
Sentence first, verdict afterwards:
If you try to write with the opposite hand, you will get unusual results.
That was in short. A longer exp is that if you are right handed, and always write with your right, then, if you try to write with your left, you will write something different than you would have written if you had done so with your normal method.
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck? Good luck with that.
This is because the left and right hemispheres of the brain have different functions.
The left side controls the right arm. Also, exactnesses, retrieval of facts, grammar, vocabulary, literalness of words.
The right side controls the left arm. Also, approximations, intonation, accents, context, blunt understanding, and the rhythm of language.
Most people are right-handed. Some of these functions are sometimes opposited in left-handers. Some of the above descriptions don’t hold true for everybody. It’s not a perfectly understood science. As a field of inquiry, it’s called “brain lateralization”.
Also, it has fallen victim to the pseudoscientists, who have taken some of these conceptions and made erroneous and/or unproveable claims. So watch it.
But, as a “model” for understanding, you can run with it. Regardless of how and why you think it.
What I’m suggesting really works for some people, so take it for what it’s worth to you, but with a grain of salt.
Write a poem with your opposite hand. It will be difficult. It will be slow. And the first few times you try to do it, your brain will insist on exercising total control. So the end product won’t do you much good.
But, if you do it often, you can relax enough to get some surprising and perhaps even original and usable results.
Call it subconsciousness. Call it unconscious. Call it intuitive.
Call it whatever you want.
This is not a new idea. I didn't invent it.
I believe in being pragmatic: if it works, put it in your bag of tricks.
Then, if you need to pull a rabbit out of a hat:
Presto!
!
Georg