5-4-3: A lipogram for Oulipost

5-4-3

 

2012:

Pam, my Pam
a.m., p.m.,

bad day? Pam
my Pam-Pam

2013:

$600 a day,
bad FM, a.m., p.m.,
$600 a day, bad
FM, a.m., p.m.-
A jam, a bad day,
Pam-Pam? My bad.
Pam? Pam?
 
2014:
my day: bad
day by day
day by bad bad day
Pam
Pam
Pam
 
Sources (All from today's Houston Chronicle)
Sewing, Joy. "A Beauty Contest for Women ‘on Wheels.’" Houston Chronicle 2 Apr. 2014: E1.
Solomon, Jerome. "Yes, It’s Just One Victory but the Vibe is Different." Houston Chronicle 2 Apr. 2014: C1.

 

Note:
This was a lipogram. Essentially, I can’t use any letter than appears in the title “Houston Chronicle.” As it turns out and is probably glaringly obvious, this means I was limited to one and a half vowels, which didn’t make for a very rich repertoire of words. I include numbers where they appeared in the articles as words. Almost any article would have produced a similar very small list of allowed words, but I couldn’t resist these two articles, which are both very cool in their own right.
 
I should also say that I had a list of words I was planning to build off of, but they simply didn’t appear at all in today’s paper. (baby, payday, were what predominated in my mind. But perhaps I can just send that hypothetical poem to Justin Bieber.)
 
Here is the prompt I was responding to:
 
A lipogram is a text that excludes one or more letters of the alphabet. The ingenuity demanded by the restriction varies in proportion to the frequency of the letter or letters excluded. For this initial exercise, you will compose a poem using only words that can be formed from letters that are NOT found in the title of your newspaper. For example, if you are working with the Washington Post, you must avoid using words that contain the letters A, G, H, I, N, O, P, S, T and W.

 

Oulipost 1: Quote Cento: the old rule book

the old rule book

the man went crazy and said, “…too heavily;

food is clearly part of the reason. Hold
the line” like something out of a horror
movie
               and she did what she had to do:
another method of revenue, a strong
sense of belonging, trust; many years away.




Sources (All from page B2 of today's Houston Chronicle)
Fechter, Joshua. "Comptroller's Race Targets Taxes." Houston Chronicle 1 Apr. 2014: B2.
O'Connor, Kyrie. "In Good Health? You Likely Have Insurance." Houston Chronicle 1 Apr. 2014: B2.
Rogers, Brian. "Scene Where UH Prof Died a 'Horror Movie'." Houston Chronicle 1 Apr. 2014: B2.


Note:
This is my first of a month of found poetry. This is a cento made of quotes from a couple of newspaper articles. In general, I am trying to avoid having the poem reflect the content of the articles in terms of theme; I generally managed that, although this one is also about relationship. It has a little bit of a narrative line through it. The title, like all of the poem, comes from the articles, and quotes within the articles.


Here is the prompt I was responding to:


When composing a cento, poets take lines from existing poems (traditionally without any alterations) and patch them together to form a new poem. Today, create a cento using only quotes referenced in newspaper articles. For example, if a newspaper article contained the line “It was a tragedy,” commented Detective Smith, the line, “It was a tragedy,” would be available for you to use in your poem. While you can’t change anything within the quotes themselves, you may choose to break a longer quote in half or use just part of a quote as needed.

Oulipost preview! boys, boys, boys.

The oulipost exercise starts in April, but I wanted to share my warm-up exercise.


here is the assignment:


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.


This is what I did with that. It's probably not Shakespeare, but it's a start.

boys, boys:

behind Bellaire, Brandon
Buckley becoming Big Bird
bit by bit, but better,
brighter; back behind Bellaire

 

SOURCE:  Bellaire boys tracksters encouraged by early-season results, Houston Chronicle March 12

Five Questions (and roughly the same number of answers) about Oulipost

So, I am super psyched to be participating in Oulipost this year. See here for details and an explanation. In short, it's an experimental form of poetry creation.




http://www.foundpoetryreview.com/oulipost/




April will be pretty busy on this blog, so be sure to check back often. The assignment is to respond every day in April to one of the prompts, so be prepared to be surprised and amazed and enthralled each day you read this blog.




In any case, on to the starting five questions about Oulipost






1. WHAT EXCITES YOU ABOUT OULIPOST?


My writing has always been pretty "traditional" which among other things means that it lacks some of the surprise and whimsy that I like in other people's writing. I very much like the idea that artificially imposed structures can actually free you up to be creative. And there's nothing more artificially imposed, I suspect, than Oulipost. This is kind of a cool chance for me to see how I respond to structure, with some public accountability attached that will ensure I stick with it.




2. WHAT, IF ANYTHING, SCARES YOU ABOUT OULIPOST?


The distinct possibility that on a given day I won't be able to produce anything that doesn't suck, and won't be able to do what I usually do in such cases, which is keep it to myself.




3. HAVE YOU WRITTEN EXPERIMENTAL OR FOUND POETRY BEFORE? IF
SO, TELL US ABOUT IT.


Never, ever, ever.



4. WHAT NEWSPAPER WILL SERVE AS YOUR SOURCE TEXT?


The Houston Chronicle, which I'll access and consume at my local starbucks and do my initial response there as well.




5. WHO’S YOUR SPIRIT OULIPIAN?


Ummm... Burt Reynolds?

Page and Spine, the long and the short

So, things have been humming along with my writing. I have kind of shifted into writing prose for a bit, but my backlog of poems is periodically getting accepted and published.


I feel the poetry coming back, but there's no particular reason to force it.


Here's a link to the latest pair that got published in an online venue, Page and Spine. They're both eclectic and voluminous, which is probably good for oddballs like me.


Here's the link to the poems


http://www.pagespineficshowcase.com/148/category/all/1.html


"amber of the moment' I started fiddling around with about a year ago, maybe a little less. The title is a line from Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five:


                  Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired at last: "Why me?"
                  "That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?"
                  "Yes." Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office which was a blob of polished amber    with three ladybugs embedded in it.
                  "Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why."

The poem is kind of a short story, which speaks for itself, in broad contours. Sometimes people have very little in common other than their mutual obligations.


"the meaning of enough" is one I wrote a long time ago- it was one of the first poems I wrote when I started back into writing,  in the winter of 2007. It's also kind of a short story. The title comes from some online debate I witnessed about anti-natalism, where someone mangled the Martin Amis quote: "Weapons are like money; no one knows the meaning of enough."  I was thinking a lot at the time about how, in many ways, the lives of some mentally ill people are way more heroic than anything I could ever do. The link between those notions formed a story and it seemed to require a pretty tight structure.


It's my wife's favorite poem of mine, an opinion she seemed to be unique in, given responses of various editors over the years. But it has found its home.

Skive, or Wasting Time

As mentioned a while back, one of my poems came out in November in Skive Magazine, their final, farewell issue. The theme of the issue is "farewells" and my poem in it is called "amen; the faithful and the true."


Here is a link to where you can get the issue.


http://www.skivemagazine.com/sales_2013_11_November_Farewell.html


"skive" as it turns out, means "to avoid work or duty by staying away or leaving early." So that feels pretty fitting; I've done a lot of staying away AND leaving early.


Another poem of mine has been accepted. This seems to be kind of a slow burn in terms of when it comes out, and given my history, there's always a small chance the outfit will fold between now and when they send the check.


I lost a haiku contest.
Less said
Better


The writing continues to come back, bad haikus aside. Care and feeding are important.

Among the Families of the Earth... and transitions

I wrote my first new poem in a long time last week. It was good. It was a sign that I am starting to settle into the new routine. I still struggle with feeling guilty every time I write creatively or read for fun, because I should be working. But that seems to be subsiding.

I have a new poem that has been accepted. And the outlet for my last poem has gone out of business.

Empirical Magazine seemed really cool and I was really excited that they printed my poem. But then they went more or less out of business, so the issue my poem appeared in was the last one. you can get the e-book version of the issue here and it has some cool stuff:

http://empiricalmag.blogspot.com/

Here is the poem, as I wrote it. It's largely fictional, and I think the point is the biblical quote that is alluded to: "You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your sins." Amos 3:2. There are a bunch of ways of reading this and I am not sure the way the character reads it. I wonder if there are some down-sides to so-called righteousness, if it creates barriers. Certainly, it's easy for the devout to be judgmental and unforgiving, and everything I read in the new testament suggests that these are every bit as bad as what is judged or unforgiven. This old testament fire and brimstone prophet can be read that way as well.

Here it is.

among the families of the earth

your father wakes; it’s five and cold,

steam; his breath, his head as it
is shaved. his wife, your mother,
stirs. the door clicks closed. the snow;
the shoveling, the salt; the half
mile to the bus on the Express.
its empty seats, he reads from
Amos, prays. but not for you.
 
perhaps not for his wife. the
listener, himself alone
and drifting through the morning
shards, will never tell.

the work is dirty, rodent eyes

from cages gleam. their foreign
ordered thoughts. the sawdust
always stinking. they breed;
mechanical and hostile. he records

his duty done, the bus again
the lights flick on as night
descends, the drifted sidewalk
(shovel, salt); the silent dinner
prayer; and living with
the consequences; sleep.