thirty is the loneliest number

thirty is the loneliest number

 

food is clearly part of the reason, Pam,

cause resentful displeasure (you you know):

f-bomb. Except it’s not my club;

 

mandibles, calm as amylase, self-

cleaning (parents);

 

                              hard as balls,

recyclable, an arid, Nordic

colander: a default couple, near

sense: yolk, considered hoarding.

 

red phase: and she has content, not

skin. Justin Bieber, moon. Perfect,

our normal.

 

                    smudged, your mercy,

not our business. Ursula Le Guin

vaunteth not herself. Australian

mariachi-rap. we’re electronic

               

                   

Note:

The last post of the month, a compliation of the earlier poems. I wasn’t sure what constraint to put on myself here, but I decided to sample my poems for the month in order, picking favorite phrases, words, lines, or punctuation.

 

Here is the prompt I was responding to:

 

Conclude the project by writing a poem that incorporates words and lines from all of your past 29 poems.

huh, Canada Dry

huh, macs

 

the biography here is attempting to criminalize

epitaxy. integrate: we’re electronic, with

a more appropriate vacuum of hundreds of

victims, charges and accounting practices

Houston is approximate to swindling a false

space that described itself as a victim;

question ethical standards for all firm and

inaccurate innovations if the allegations are true

 

Source

Wermund, Benjamin. 2 UH Professors Accused of Scam. Houston Chronicle. 29 Apr. 2014. A1, A11B3.

 

Note:

The goal was to produce an oulipost that looked like an oulipost, but wasn’t. Fortunately, this article had a lot of great words I scrambled around at random. I am still not 100% clear on what epitaxy is, but I’m glad it exists.

 

Here is the prompt I was responding to:

 

The name of this procedure is taken from the soft drink marketed as “the champagne of ginger ales.” The drink may have bubbles, but it isn’t champagne. In the words of Paul Fournel, who coined the term, a Canada Dry text “has the taste and color of a restriction but does not follow a restriction.” (A musical example is Andrew Bird’s “Fake Palindromes.”)  Be creative, and write a poem sourced from your newspaper that sounds like it’s been Oulipo-ed, but hasn’t.

a melting snowball oulipost

 

any given

 

entertainment,

(thanksgiving):

mariachi-rap,

Australian

variation/

everyday.

winning

asleep

wheel

will

sun

da

y

 

Source

Horswell, Cindy. Festival Gets Off to a ‘Good’ Start. Houston Chronicle. 28 Apr. 2014. B1, B3.

 

Note:

This may or may not be cheating, but I was really happy with the result. Not just because it looks like an ice-cream cone. The photo in the original article drew me in, and the progression turned out to be a really nice mélange.

 

Here is the prompt I was responding to:

 

Melting Snowball: A text in which each word has one letter less than the preceding one, and the last word only one letter. From your newspaper, select a starting word, and then continue adding words of decreasing length from the same source article or passage. Challenge yourself further by only using words in order as you encounter them in the text.

rational lapdance: a sonnet

rational dance: a sonnet

 

birthday has been charged with a felony

according to the documents she

refutes in a substantive way

 

she vaunteth not herself

 

you baby happy birthday

long and is kind charity

property but only temporarily

drugs though prison officials say

 

the rich are actually doing well

 

and the other students yelled

it’s difficult to hire and retain guards

mere mention of unequal

hoarding disorder like this fall

dance according to court records

  

Source

Lezon, Dale. Lap Dance Lands Teacher in Hot Seats. Houston Chronicle. 27 Apr. 2014. B3

 

Editorial. Feeling the Heat. Houston Chronicle. 27 Apr. 2014. B6

 

Bible Verse. 1 Corinthians 13:4. Houston Chronicle. 27 Apr. 2014. B6

 

Krugman, Paul. Economist Exposes U.S. Myth of Meritocracy. Houston Chronicle. 27 Apr. 2014. B7

 

Szymanski, Jeff, Frost, Randy, & Steketee, Anti-Hoarding Ordinance Stigmatizes Mentally Ill. Houston Chronicle. 27 Apr. 2014. B7

 

Note:

I limited myself to the B section of the newspaper, as that’s where all the fun is, and when I am on a limited time budget, it’s the best place to find stuff. I like how it came together. I did some minor jiggering to make it fit (tenses, genders, and the like).  

 

Here is the prompt I was responding to:

 

Create a 14-line sonnet sourced from lines from your newspaper that is divided according to the first five digits of the irrational number pi – that is, into stanzas of 3, 1, 4, 1 and 5 lines. As with the preceding sonnet assignment (see April 14) you may interpret “sonnet” as formally or as loosely as you wish.

puppy love, belle absente

Puppy love

 

You, Jacqui and him’d celebrate with KFC, and then go up (this was before zinc oxide, UVA)

and quick lay out and wish. Me: it was extra-agonizing to be July and five

in June, experiencing the frequent micronized TV, the block/body shows.

Zap, be extra smart, you’d say, your priceless heirloom just as quick to fade or giveaway,

to explain Ursula LeGuin and randomized just-worlds to one who’s five and frequent

and whose hospitalizations (infliximab) and even fingernails just say anti-quarterback

  

Source

Hoffman, Ken. Chick-Fil-A Pushes Ahead of KFC in Sales. Houston Chronicle. 26 Apr. 2014. E2

 

Roizen, Michael, & Oz, Mehmet. Accelerated Treatments for Crohn’s Show Results. Houston Chronicle. 26 Apr. 2014. E2

  

Note:

This was an instance where getting closer to the instructions actually helped. I started with the name “Spanky” who is the “Pethouse Pet of the Week” (I don’t fully understand why Spanky has an opinion about KFC, but that’s okay). Originally, I thought I was to build words from the entire newspaper, but that led to the paralysis that comes with too much freedom. I then understood that I was to get all my words from the article, but that was too little freedom, as Spanky was absolutely missing a few letters. So I compromised and took the article directly below, which as kind fate would have it was a medical column full of all those difficult to find letters. I didn’t start out with the narrative that emerged, but found that there were certain words that I really wanted to include and they set the narrative for me.

 

Here is the prompt I was responding to:

 

Beautiful Outlaw- Belle Absente: The outlaw in question is the name of the person (or subject) to whom the poem is addressed. Each line of the poem includes all the letters of the alphabet except for the letter appearing in the dedicated name at the position corresponding to that of the line: when writing a poem to Eva, the first line will contain all letters except E, the second all letters except V, and the third all letters except A.

Choose someone mentioned in your newspaper to whom to address your poem. Compose a beautiful outlaw poem following the procedure outlined above and using words sourced from your newspaper text.

not affirmative authority, a larded psalm

not affirmative authority, a psalm

 

there are no more fires in the

restroom true I continue to

be very confident in our position

 

in the litigation the data just isn’t

there you do have your critics

out there the earth is full of

your mercy not our business

 

our kids are not commodities

finally let the people decide

I wasn’t so sure about that very

modest there’s one side of me

 

that says to go ahead the people

should decide teach me your

laws I’ve noticed that they’re

exiting kids as quickly as they

 

accept them all it really did was

allow them the right to proceed

the halls are no longer like a party

  

Source

Falkenberg, Lisa. Not Sold On Abbott’s School Takeover Plan. Houston Chronicle. 25 Apr. 2014. B1, B7

 

Collier, Kish. Sports Authority Debt Lawsuit is Back On. Houston Chronicle. 25 Apr. 2014. B2.

 

Bible Verse. Psalm 119: 64. Houston Chronicle. 25 Apr. 2014. B8

 

Krauthammer, Charles. Court Makes Right Call on Affirmative Action. Houston Chronicle. 25 Apr. 2014. B9

 

Note:

I enjoyed this a lot. Given the relatively free range I had, I decided to limit myself to one section of the newspaper, the B section, which is usually where local news, opinions, and (I only just discovered this) a bible verse all reside. Two news items, an opinion piece, and the aforementioned bible verse gave me all I needed. There were no erasures, but I did play a little loose with the definition of sentence. In some cases what appeared to be two separate closures were separated by a colon, which I treated like a period. My starting two-sentence piece was “there are no more fires in the restrooms. The halls are no longer ‘like a party.’” Then, I just inserted the most promising of my building blocks between them, and so on and so on. I finished up by making the lines roughly the same length and organizing them in a way that I liked.

 

Here is the prompt I was responding to:

 

Larding aka “line stretching.” From your newspaper text, pick two sentences. Add a new sentence between the first two; then two sentences in the new intervals that have become available; and continue to add sentences until the passage has attained the length desired. The supplementary sentences must either enrich the existing narrative or create a new narrative continuity.

stop both are right, a homosyntaxism

stop both are right

 

stalling, they entice sadly

smudged, she hobnobs, almost

knows, I moved, just

entertaining, you see critically

 

entertaining, she signs just

smudged, you love almost

knowing, they click critically

stalling I list sadly

 

know?  they ask critically,

stall, she will be almost

smudged, I host, just

entertain, you buy sadly.

 

Source

Hoffman, Ken. Food and Reading Fans Will Love This Event. Houston Chronicle. 24 Apr. 2014. E1, E2.

 

Note:

I saw a lot of different ways of approaching this exercise. I started with my favorite sentence in the article: “stop, both are right.” This, as near as I can figure, parses as “verb intransitive, pronoun, verb transitive, adverb.” I decided to limit myself to other words found in the article that fit into one of these four categories. There were four each of intransitive verbs that I could find (and some are debatable), four pronouns, four adverbs, and a crap-ton of transitive verbs. I figured I would see how close to exhausting my list of transitive verbs I could come by shifting around the other sets of four. I am pretty happy with the result, although it’s far more repetitive than exhaustive. I may have said this already, but I like repetition.

 

Here is the prompt I was responding to:

 

Homosyntaxism is a method of translation that preserves only the syntactic order of the original words. To give a rudimentary example, if N=noun, V=verb and A=adjective, the outline NVA could yield solutions such as “The day turned cold,” “Violets are blue,” “An Oulipian! Be wary!”)

Option 1: Choose a sentence from your newspaper source text and write as many homosyntaxisms as possible based on that same variation.

Option 2: Complete a homosyntaxism of an entire paragraph or article found in your text.

couple's inventory, in order, unless (after Dear Abby)

couple’s inventory, in order, unless

 

pronouns, personal, ascending:

I, we, me, we,

you, you,

he, it, him, it,

he

 

nouns and substantives:

man, years, marriage, goal, dilemma, husband, track, time,

sex, times, year,

sex, times, life, couple,

sex, times, year, mind, business, days,

year

verbs:

have been, may be, ‘d had, married, is, is

keeps, have, has, informed, was,

do, think,

married, having, is, keeps, travels, is

gone

 

negations, descending:

not, not

 

adpositions:

to, for, of, in, that, only, that,

for, about, for, in, that, in, that,

for, about

 

conjunctions and junctions and miscellany:

a, but, this, a, a, and, and, a, a, what, also

 

numerals, no particular:

100, 30, 2013, 76, 30-plus, 76, 60, a

 

adjectives, ascending:

quite upset, sex, your, every, my, my, adequate, sex, normal, quite good, wonderful,

personal, perfect, our, normal

 

Source

Dear Abby. Couple’s Sex Life Is All About the Numbers. Houston Chronicle. 23 Apr. 2014. E5.

 

Note:

I didn’t have a lot of time, so was in the market for something short. As fate would have it, there was a disturbing, albeit relatively succinct question asked of Dear Abby today. The poem, as well as the question (and Abby’s unrecorded answer), is all about couples and relationships. Or rather, a particular approach to above.

 

Here is the prompt I was responding to:

 

Inventory is a method of analysis and classification that consists of isolating and listing the vocabulary of a pre-existing work according to parts of speech. Choose a newspaper article or passage from a newspaper article and “inventory” the nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, articles, etc. Bonus points for creative presentation of your final lists.

wellness departs from beneficient infinity: an antonymy

wellness departs from beneficent infinity

 

Ford periphery

will be nude

against an aberrant

regular-season snuggy

or emptied apart from

common division of

ease: moon-night, day.

 

Source

Feigen, Jonathan. Issues Return at Bad Time. Houston Chronicle. 22 Apr. 2014. C1, C5.

 

Note:

This was another fun one. The starting sentence was: “Toyota Center was dressed for the occasion, adorned with the usual playoff t-shirts and filled with rare levels of  electricity Sunday night.”

 

There are some words that don’t lend themselves well to opposites. For the title, I did the same thing. I wasn’t sure what the opposite of time was, but I think the title went in the direction of particular instance (“time”), which meant the opposite seemed to be “infinity.” “Ford” seemed like the opposite of “Toyota”, but your mileage may vary (see also “snuggy” as the opposite of “t-shirt”). Some words gave me plenty of options and I had fun playing around with different ones.

 

Here is the prompt I was responding to: 

In Oulipian usage, antonymy means the replacement of a designated element by its opposite. Each word is replaced by its opposite, when one exists (black/white) or by an alternative suggesting antonymy (a/the, and/or, glass/wood).

Original: To be or not to be, that is the question.

Antonymy: To not be and to be: this was an answer.

Select a passage from your newspaper source text to complete this exercise.

women, dust, life's detours: a confabulation

women, dust, life’s detours

 

I let shame run rampant (justin

bieber hasn’t got a chance) no

one knew I had a child (a judge

in florida) more a rumor than a

fact (excuse me, judge) I didn’t

have my baby (for may fifteenth)

the time of facebook (driving

while intoxicated) I released her

from her shame (that’s cinco

de mayo) thirty five years is

too long (roll over) we don’t

operate in forgiveness (I’m not

doing this again) they’re more

than enough (to get flat)

 

Source

Cowen, Diane. Jakes Helps Women Navigate Life’s Detours. Houston Chronicle. 21 Apr. 2014. D1, D2.

 

Dustin. Houston Chronicle. 21 Apr. D8.

 

Garfield. Houston Chronicle. 21 Apr. D7

 

Note:

This is an intermingling of quotes from hes and shes. All the quotes from women are taken from the same article. The male quotes are taken from two comic strips from the same section of the newspaper. I did some erasures to smooth out and the conversation spilled from line to line. I quite enjoyed this process.

 

Here is the prompt I was responding to:

 

Craft a conversation poem using “he said/she said” quotes that you find in newspaper articles.

role plays a race

role plays a race

 

…wish those treatment would

explain how exactly the men

of the race would differ if

president were indeed mix of

the part what them would make

misbehavior say ok color is

definitely about this. of content

not skin. of I because from where

behavior sit which of the Obama

toward behavior would

need white…

 

Source

Pitts, Leonard. Race Continues to Play a Role in American Politics. Houston Chronicle. 20 Apr. 2014. B10

 

Note:

It was tough to find text that wasn’t so littered with non-nouns that it was remotely interesting. I picked this article, and a section about halfway through that seemed somewhat more promising than anything else I read this Sunday. The title was another lescurean permutation on the relevant portion of the title of the article.

 

Here is the prompt I was responding to:

 

Select a newspaper article or passage from a newspaper article as your source text. Switch the first noun with the second noun, the third noun with the fourth noun, and so on until you’ve reached the end of your text.

and she has, a sestina

and she has

 

ask for some help if you need it

and she has

an invitation will come forward that you’ll yes to

i started to hear the walls creak and i said lets go

what are you crying about

a different maker’s generic doesn’t work at all

 

it’s not about me at all

garcia could not get a hand on it

that’s what sound science is all about

and she has

an honor to get to go

perhaps schedule a massage or two

 

he can still get a lot better because he wants to

we sail a bit sometimes not at all

and i said lets go

keep putting forth effort and working at it

and she has

that’s what sound science is all about

 

what are you crying about

there will be happiness but a somber moment too

and she has

its not about me at all

he told her to keep it

it’s an honor to get to go

 

we’re ready to stop talking and just go

that’s what sound science is about

ask for some help if you need it

there will be a somber moment too

but sometimes not at all

and she has

 

and she has

to get to go

not at all

crying about

he wants to

need it

 

 

Source

MacInnis, Roberta. Runners Go Extra Mile for Boston. Houston Chronicle. 19 Apr. 2014. A1, A12

Minge, John. Gulf Recovery Efforts are Making Progress. Houston Chronicle. 19 Apr. 2014. B7.

Kaderka, Susan. Damage to Wildlife Remains Significant. Houston Chronicle. 19 Apr. 2014. B7

Creech, Jenny Dial. Happy With His Game. Houston Chronicle. 19 Apr. 2014. C1, C2

Harvey, Randy. Howard’s Postseason Attitude? It’s Super. Houston Chronicle 19 Apr. 2014. C1, C2.

Verdejo, Angel. Lee’s Magic Run Ends With Semifinal Loss. Houston Chronicle 19 Apr. 2014. C6

Duarte, Joseph. Thomas, House Obtain Conditional Releases. Houston Chronicle 19 Apr. 2014. C1, C8.

Bigar, Jacqueline. Horoscope. Houston Chronicle. 19 Apr. 2014. E7.

MacInnis, Roberta. Charter In The Caribbean. Houston Chronicle 19 Apr. 2014. L1, L3

Graedon, Joe and Theresa. E-Cigarettes May Not Help Smokers Quit the Habit. Houston Chronicle 19 Apr.                                                                                                                                                    

 

 Note:

Wow, that was tough. Here is my raggedy sestina. I found myself getting attached to certain phrases and with a limited amount of time. So there are multiple repeats here, especially of the title line. I worked with a small set of sentences, and mainly did erasures.

 

Here is the prompt I was responding to:

 

This will be one of your most challenging Oulipost prompts! A sestina is a poetic form of six six-line stanzas. The end-words of the lines of each stanza repeat those of the first, but in a differing order that in each successive stanza follows the permutation: 615243. The entire sequence of end words is thus: 123456; 615243; 364125; 532614; 451362; 246531. All words and phrases must be sourced from your newspaper text..

studly homoconsonantism

for stud, no harem

 

Eden to so chosen a map:

red phase, ocean as icy

path. No doom stabs,

tipped, farm-pour,

city can game deacon.

 

Source

Falkenberg, Lisa. Cases Against Surgeon Show How Tort Law Fails. Houston Chronicle. 18 Apr. 2014. B1, B2.

 

Note:

This was a lot of fun. Like a lot of these, this was really an exercise in free association. I basically just wrote out the consonants and then took the words that jumped out at me, then filled out with the words that clanged from the words that first jumped out. I guess the moral is there is not truly free association. The finished product quasi- makes sense, I think.

 

Here is the root sentence: “Duntsch is an impaired physician, a sociopath, and must be stopped from practicing medicine.” The title is a similar treatment given to “first, do no harm”, which is also the first line of the article.

 

Here is the prompt I was responding to:

 

Choose a sentence or short passage from your newspaper to complete a homoconsonantism. In this form, the sequence of consonants in a source text is kept, while all its vowels are replaced. For example:

ORIGINAL: To be or not to be: that is the question.

CONSONANTS ONLY: T b r n t t b t t s t h q s t n
FINAL PRODUCT: As burnt tibia: it heats the aqueous tone.

Hoarded Questions: A Haiku Series

haikus, hoarded questions

 

1.

to battle insect

or rodent infestations

of the property?

 

2.

how is this going

to be brought to light- by smell?

by infestation?

 

3.

how much paper

in a person’s home is too much-

considered hoarding?

 

Source

Fraser, Jayme. Hoarding Law OK’d But Poses Quandry. Houston Chronicle. 17 Apr. 2014. B1, B10.

 

Note:

Based on the instructions and the limitations imposed by the form, today’s version is going to be somewhat more on the nose and in line with the actual article than is usually the case. I decided to return to the hoarding, which is an occasionally recurring theme. Two of the sentences I chose were questions. I made the other a question as well, as it seemed to fit with the minor erasures I did.

 

Here is the prompt I was responding to:

 

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 of verses of normal length to lines of haiku-like brevity. Select three sentences from a single newspaper article and “haiku” them.

Chimera's Egg: Yolk disagrees

yolk disagrees; manifest to affect Easter at first ways

 

For a week who is eggs-

and straight you- for

heightening with contact

of fiery and sometimes

very dejected eggs, loosen.

could?- to see eggs with eggs

closer to his own eggs-

may?- pop a good landslide

for eggs, eggs.

 

 

Source

Wire Reports. Berlusconi To Spend Time at Senior Facility. Houston Chronicle. 16 Apr. 2014. A2.

Nouns:

Morago, Greg. Celebrating the Egg. Houston Chronicle. 16 Apr. 2014. F1, F6

Verbs:

Bigar, Jacqueline. Horoscope. Houston Chronicle. 16 Apr. 2014. E5

Adjectives:

Creech, Jeremy Dial. Fiery Guard Could Tell a Title Was In the Air. Houston Chronicle. 16 Apr. 2014. C1, C3

 

Note:

This is one heck of a mixture. I had intended to start with something local, but nothing was that interesting, and the short piece on Berlusconi caught my eye. This is the first paragraph of an article about him, which I logically combined with a food column on (you guessed it) eggs, a horoscope (starting from the beginning which is Aries) and a sports column on the Houston Rockets.

 

The title is the title of the Berlusconi piece with similar treatment using a subheading for the egg piece, today’s horoscope and a subheading for the sports piece. I stuck with the rules, although I did change things like tenses and quantities to make it slightly less nonsensical.

 

Here is the prompt I was responding to:

 

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 nouns, verbs and adjectives. Replace the nouns with those taken in order from a different work, the verbs with those from a second work, the adjectives with those from a third.