Category Archives: Uncategorized

Oulipost #17: Haikuisation. The haiku is a Japanese poetic form whose most obvious feature is the division of its 17 syllables into lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables. Haikuisation has sometimes been used by Oulipians to indicate the reduction … Continue reading →

Oulipost #16: Chimera. The chimera of Homeric legend – lion’s head, goat’s body, treacherous serpent’s tail – has a less forbidding Oulipian counterpart. It is engendered as follows. Having chosen a newspaper article or other text for treatment, remove its … Continue reading →

Prisoner’s Constraint: Imagine a prisoner whose supply of paper is restricted. To put it to fullest use, he will maximize his space by avoiding any letter extending above or below the line (b, d,f,g,h,j,k,l,p,q,t and y) and use only a,c,e,m,n,o,r,s,u,v,w,x … Continue reading →

Oulipost #14: Column Inches. Refer to the advertising section or the classifieds in your source newspaper. Create a poem by replacing all of the nouns in your chosen ad segment or classified listing with nouns from one article in the … Continue reading →

EPITHALAMIUM: Visit the engagement or wedding announcements section of your newspaper and select a couple. Today’s paper yielded none, but there was a lovely story of a nearly 60 year union of Rudy and Lily Tenes. I chose them. Their story … Continue reading →

Write a sonnet sourced from lines found in newspaper articles. (I took liberties with the form – 12 lines for day 12, ababb, ababb, cc) Life Design Smoky-mirror, fleeting pretty, humbling sensation Spaces, ugly, ill-defined, build boring boundaries Glimpsing perhaps … Continue reading →

Univocalism: A univocalic text is one written with a single vowel.  YET When we see where These extreme events be kept There’s few between them, Few been there yet Severe trends be key Whether wet be wetter, Here, ten degrees … Continue reading →

Snowball: This procedure requires the first word of a text to have only one letter, the second two, the third three, and so on as far as resourcefulness and inspiration allow. Bombardier   9 On One Wild Train   Public … Continue reading →

Beautiful In-law (Beau Present) Select a name from one of your newspaper articles, famous or not. Compose a poem using only words that can be made from the letters in that person’s name. Lorenzo Alexander, philanthropic footballer, inspired me! Lone … Continue reading →