Word Horde Word Game

A bit like chess and a bit like wargames, there are two players. Each takes a collection of connected sentences, verse &tc from their work and divides it into units based on their favourite words and phases within that paragraph. These units are placed a word to a square in rows on a 23x23 "board" Ranks are formed from each player's edge. Ranks move a row per turn. it is not necessary to move an entire row. A single word can be sent on alone. A word can be held back in reserve. But something in a row must move in each turn. The original units remain intact or blend with those in front and behind, as suggested by strategy (the 1st player decides to advance from the context of his sentence unit the word "mellifluous". The opponent decides to counter this with the more apparently plain "the journey")

So I am Gerald Murnane and decide to use a paragraph from my excellent work "The Plains". I choose the latter part of the paragraph that ends on page 122 ". . . some detail of a plain paradoxically apart from,and yet defining further, the land revealed moments afterwards between the ponderously parting curtains."

My units:

SOME DETAIL OF A PLAIN     PARADOXICALLY APART FROM,   
AND YET DEFINING FURTHER        THE LAND REVEALED MOMENTS
AFTERWARDS BETWEEN THE        PONDEROUSLY PARTING CURTAINS

My opponent is none other than the poet Robin Blaser, who I shall probably never meet as I very rarely leave my home in Melbourne. Robin is using the end of his poem "Image-Nation 25" It naturally sorts itself into units:

I IMAGINE MORTALITY        ITS UNREST AND PROSES
I IMAGINE EVOLUTIONARY LOVE
MY THOUSAND AND ONE CELEBRATIONS

strategy at this stage is renounced and the ranks are as above. (NOTE: it now seems best to have a board half as long as it is wide, at probably the very most. The words can be facing the opponent, yourself, whatever is agreed upon - someone may have an aversion to upside down letters)

Gerald advances SOME DETAIL OF A PLAIN. Robin advances I IMAGINE MORTALITY. Gerald advances AND YET DEFINING FURTHER. Robin advances I IMAGINE MORTALITY once more. Gerald wants to work on his flank, and advances PARADOXICALLY APART FROM. Robin advances EVOLUTIONARY LOVE, separating it from its unit.


. . .(fast forward somewhat)

SOME                PARADOXICALLY
      DETAIL OF A PLAIN                APART FROM
       MORTALITY    LOVE ITS UNREST
I IMAGINE EVOLUTIONARY            AND PROSES
I
IMAGINE
MY THOUSAND AND ONE CELEBRATIONS

when words meet: We begin evaluating the words that meet, in the context of themselves alone, their units, and in the words newly about them. Rather than definite rules here to determine which side wins the conflict of the meeting of words, it is intended that the two sides engage in debate. It is the words that win, and can be removed, or absorbed into the winning side.

The game is over when someone feels like getting drunk or writing a paragraph about a monitoring station and the things it monitors, or the life cycle of life-forms living in a shoe, or a romance told by dental plaque.

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This is an idea for a word game that I woke up with in my head. I hope that those of you involved in teaching writing to angry young people may attempt to use it to inspire non-self expressions, an interest in words, abstraction despite what they are always told, the poignancy of little things, like words, victories.

*NOTE: the board probably does not need to be defined in squares or rows or whatever, the words themselves define the dimensions of the play-area