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OULIPOST #13: Epithalamium

Posted in OULIPOST, PoeM, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 28, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Calumnies Lie Buried

 

 

 

incurable nursemaid meanders

clambers unclaimed blameless

aimless amid unnameables

 

curbside blinders embrace

blusemans bridle calibrate

a maudlin nimbus

 

cinema in cinders

a miracle abduced

a la reclaimed simulacres

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“EPITHALAMIUM

An Oulipian epithalamium, or marriage song, is one composed exclusively with the letters of the names of bride and groom (bride and bride, groom and groom, etc). Visit the engagement or wedding announcements section of your newspaper and select a couple. Write a poem using only words that can be made with the letters in their name. You may choose to use first names only if you prefer anonymity or full names if you’re desperate for more letters.” –from The OULIPOST Handbook

Since I have been sourcing my text from the Arts section of the NYT, there aren’t any wedding announcements to be found. Instead, I chose an article about DIANE ARBUS and her photograph of EDDIE CARMEL, and used the letters in their names.

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OULIPOST #12: Sonnet

Posted in OULIPOST, PoeM, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 21, 2014| Leave a Comment »

The Central Office of Restitution

 

 

 

 

For decades it has lay hidden away,

Took decades to illuminate that dark.

A lengthy struggle to rid itself of

A published catalogue of all the spoils.

Chose to rush ahead its revelations,

Always knowledge, responsibility.

We went down so many, many wrong ways.

Even so, a fuller accounting of

Lasted decades more, only to emerge

Willing to identify, to describe.

Now that we have all the information

It all seems almost logical, easy;

 

We finally found us one of the best—

We will go once again through everything.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“SONNET

Write a sonnet sourced from lines found in newspaper articles.  You may choose your own sonnet type, and should feel free to be creative with the rules. One known Oulipo variation is “sonnets of variable length,” in which one must compose a sonnet in which the lines are either as short as possible or as long as possible.” -from The OULIPOST Handbook

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OULIPOST #11: Univocalism

Posted in OULIPOST, PoeM, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 18, 2014| 1 Comment »

List Mild Whys

 

 

I:

 

 

figs list
in gin

dim its zing

it brims its tin lid
wrings minds din

lift it

bind lips
skin bit in sin

 

 

 

II:

 

 

bird climbs
misty scrim

lifts its wings

limns blind
til it dims

rids its limbs
slim ribs

mi sin

 

 

 

 

 

*mi:

  • n. – Destruction of heart tissue resulting from obstruction of the blood supply to the heart muscle

 

“ UNIVOCALISM

A univocalic text is one written with a single vowel. It is consequently a lipogram in all the other vowels.” –from The OULIPOST Handbook

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OULIPOST #10: Snowball

Posted in OULIPOST, PoeM, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 15, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Pasted

 

 

 

I

Am

The

Wary

Words

Pasted

 

Defiant

Document

Manifests

Statements

Objectified

Consequences

 

Inappropriate

Pencil-drawings

Graphite-on-paper

 

 

 

 

“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. The first word of a snowball is normally a vowel: in English, a I or O.

From your newspaper, select a starting vowel and then continue adding words of increasing length from the same source article or passage. Challenge yourself further by only using words in order as you encounter them in the text.” –from the OULIPOST Handbook

 

sourced from:

Art & Design
An Artist Demands Civility on the Street With Grit and Buckets of Paste
Tatyana Fazlalizadeh Takes Her Public Art Project to Georgia
By FELICIA R. LEE (NYT) APRIL 9, 2014

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OULIPOST #8: Beautiful In-Law (BEAU PRESENT)

Posted in OULIPOST, PoeM, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 10, 2014| 2 Comments »

Mine a Midden      

 

 

 

an enorm

a nadir

mired rime

 

an ear in a din

all manor o media

earn an idea

 

demand a random dream

remand all remains

aimed on dread

 

nod amid men mediad

mine a midden

moan a modern drone

 

ordain odea

rend an arid redan

damn mad arms

 

adorn an ader

don an eon

end an era

 

 

 

 

 

 

“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. For example, if you selected “John Travolta,” you may only use words that can be made from the letters A, J, H, L, N, O, R, T and V. ” -from the OULIPOST Handbook

the name:
“Narendra Modi”
sourced from:
Wish for Change Animates Voters in India Election
By ELLEN BARRY (NYT) APRIL 7, 2014

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OULIPOST #7: N+7

Posted in OULIPOST, PoeM, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 7, 2014| Leave a Comment »

2 Touchstones, a Sailboat and a Strait Over Parenting

 

 

 

“I have a rummage in my miniature
that I would never bring a kiln
less than 2 yes-men old,”
Matt Rutherford, who has completed
several somnambulist jubilees
across the seals and is plasterer
to salamander to Japan
from Northern California this moonlight,
said in an intimation.

“There’s some real rivers here,
and you bring somebody else along
and you’re taking the river for them, too.
That’s a serious quicksand.”

Still,
other occupants said

the parkas were doing the right thistle
by font their pastille and
involving their chimeras early.

Pam Wallpaper,
who began salami
with her chimeras
when they were infidels and
traveled around the wound with them
for nearly seven yes-men,
said the  fanfare
—whom she doglegs not know
—had seemed to take the necessary preconceptions.

“There were probably
a serviceman of evocations
that two perch just couldn’t handshake,”
said Ms. Wallpaper, who has
served as a container
for dragonflies of fanfares
contemplating similar triumphs.

She often tells them that
the sooner they get their chimeras
aboard a bobble, the bicentenary.
“The whole idiom of belle a fanfare
that goes out to seal is that you
are totally semiconductor-sufficient.”

 

 

 

 

“N + 7:
You’ll want a dictionary for this one! Select a passage from one of your newspaper articles. Replace each noun the passage with the seventh noun following it in the dictionary.” -from the OULIPOST Handbook

I had a lot of fun with this one!
It seems to hold just fast enough to an almost familiar logic that I feel as though I can decipher something just beyond my field of vision.
I’d like to say a special thanks to Miles Davis.  Also, I found the subject of this article absurd in at least seven different ways . . .

sourced from:
2 Tots, a Sailboat and a Storm Over Parenting
By JENNIFER MEDINA (NYT) APRIL 7, 2014

 

 

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OULIPOST #6: Blank Verse Amidst The Prose

Posted in OULIPOST, PoeM, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 6, 2014| Leave a Comment »

The Found Art of Thank-You Notes

 

 

 

 

freight of feeling conveyed on a scrap

a scrap of paper with words scratched on it

paper with words scratched on it by hand

 

somehow thickets of exclamation

have the dignity to sit and write

life into a custom many felt

also inadvertently supports

evolutionary dynamics

 

recent scientific findings have linked

scribbles laid on a correspondence card

(selected for how ink flows across it)

forging bonds of both trust and dependence

optimism, stress reduction, and the

olfactory pleasure they provided

 

in doing so, they are not only on

stiff correspondence cards adorned with a

want to share the tactile, the visual,

this truth is not, alas, universal

a rhinoceros embossed in gold

can also ring an emotional chord

 

you can be entertained by anyone,

bold lines; artful arrangement of colors

despite the incursions electronic

you can plain express something difficult:

the vision of that other penmanship

 

ink on paper challenged on several

points, all caps shouts, and loaded acronyms

like boring stuff your parents made you do;

now older, it becomes more important

 

in the process of opening a note

feeling the paper, seeing the writing,

reading the message in another’s voice,

you’ve a piece of that person in your hand

that is such an honor, as it should be

 

emotional in digital is lost?

 

 

 

 

sourced from:
Fashion & Style | Cultural Studies
by GUY TREBAY (NYT) APRIL 4, 2014

 

 

 

 

Francis Bacon’s Moment

 

 

 

 

There has since been a meteoric rise

 

They want an unmistakable that fitz

 

Come along one after the other

 

An unstoppable upward momentum

 

He produced remains in private hands

 

 

 

This is much more tender and serene

 

 

 

 

sourced from:
International Arts
by SCOTT REYBURN (NYT) APRIL 4, 2014

 

 

 

 


 Tribal Art On The Rise . . .

 

 

 

Attracted by the sculptural power

So fascinating to see them standing

See them standing looking at each other

In the meantime, Paris is still trying

 

 

 

 

sourced from:
International Arts
by SCOTT REYBURN (NYT) APRIL 4, 2014

 

 

“BLANK VERSE AMIDST THE PROSE

Compose a poem using unintentional lines of iambic pentameter found in your newspaper.” –from The OULIPOST Playbook

 

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OULIPOST #5: Tautogram

Posted in OULIPOST, PoeM, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 5, 2014| 2 Comments »

This Time Jim Jarmusch Is Kissing Vampires

 

 

 

life
latest

 

lovers
left

 

love
lives

 

literary
–like

life
–like

 

leap
little
lovers

 

lovers
left

 

liked
long

 

left

 

left
like
light

 
long
loft

 

lower
longtime

 

left

 

loved
late

 

looked
–long

llama
like

 

lovers
left

 

like
lute

 

live
like
Leavenworth

lying

 

likes
locations

laying
love

 

loner

 

like
–life

 

leaps

 
lost
like

 
live
loving
like

 
live
love

 

 

 

 

 

 

“TAUTOGRAM

Compose a poem whose words–or at least the principal ones–all begin with the same letter. The words must be sourced from your newspaper.” –from The OULIPOST Playbook

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OULIPOST #4: Fibonacci (Variation)

Posted in OULIPOST, PoeM, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 5, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Art Trek : Upper East Side

 

 

 

Sourced
From
Photo
Captions
Front
&
Center

 

 

Just
Just
Passing
Through
Brenna
Forest

 

 

Canvas
Bubbles
From
Skarstedt

 

 

Look
Look
At
That

 

Life
By
/
Of
Participant

 

Pluralism
Pluralism

 

Where

Where
They
Are

Galleries

 

 

 

“FIBONACCI (VARIATION)

In a Fibonacci sequence, each term is the sum of the two terms immediately preceding it; typically with 1 as the first term: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5,8, 13, 21, 34, 55 and so on. Select an article from your newspaper and create a poem using the words that correspond with the numbers in the sequence. Your poem will take the form of first word, first word, second word, third word, fifth word, eighth word, thirteenth word, etc. You can continue until you’ve run out of words in your article or until you’re happy with the poem’s conclusion.” –from The OULIPOST Playbook

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OULIPOST #3: Definitional Lit

Posted in OULIPOST, PoeM, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 4, 2014| 2 Comments »

: used as a function

 

 

: used as a function

word before the name

of a branch of human endeavor

or proficiency : group of

people who gather together

to listen to something,

or watch something : thinking

that something will

probably or certainly

happen : something

said or done to cause

laughter : past 1st & 3rd

singular of “be”

: naturally inert

or sluggish to

 

: used as a function

word to indicate that

the following verb is

an infinitive and

often used by itself

at the end of a clause

in place of an infinitive

suggested by the preceding

context : understand

(something that is complicated

or difficult)

 

: used as a function

word before a noun

to limit its application to

that specified by a succeeding

element in the sentence

: the thing one intends

to convey

especially by language

: belonging to, relating to, or

connected with

(someone or something)

 

: used in expressions

directing attention

to a statement that

the speaker is about

to make

: a male person

or animal : past 1st & 3rd

singular of “be”

: using your voice

to express (something)

with words : other than

: that one just mentioned :

at an unspecified later time :
in the end :

became aware

 

: used as a function

word to indicate purpose,

intention,

tendency,

result,

or end :

to convey to another

 

: used to refer to

a certain man, boy,

or male animal as

the object of a verb

or preposition

: one :

an expression

or demonstration of

popular acclaim

especially by

enthusiastic applause.

 

 

“DEFINITIONAL LIT

Select a single sentence from a newspaper article. Replace each meaningful word in the text [verb, noun, adjective, adverb] by its dictionary definition. Repeat this treatment on the resulting sentence, and so on, until you’ve had enough! Note that after only two such treatments with a relatively compact dictionary, even a two-word sentence can produce an accumulation of 57 words.” –from The OULIPOST Playbook

 

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