OuliPost: Exit Interview

Oulipost Exit Interview: Oulipost Ends Where the Work Begins

Question 1:

What happened during Oulipost that you didn’t expect? What are the best (or worst) moments for you?

My addiction to it. I loved it which was surprising. I felt like a writer again. I was surprised as to how much I loved it and how some of the prompts came naturally to me.

My best moments were any Belle Absent poem we did or a poem that involved using all the letters of the alphabet. It was super fun. The poems involving math really confounded me at times. I found that later in the month I struggled more because it became more difficult to manage my time and...the prompts were harder.

Question 3:

What does your street look like?

Busy. Upscale. Pot-holey. Pretentious with a side of modesty.

Question 4:

Who is your spirit Oulipostian?

Valérie Beaudouin

We almost have the same and she's super cool and brilliant..hello..a whole book on meter and rhyme in verse. I wish was still in grad school...I would use her for my thesis!

Question 5:

What are the top three poems you wrote during this project?

Wow..

Okay..I chose 4. These were hard..but I am pretty proud of these.

1.Quote Cento
2. Headlines
3. Tautogram
4. EPITHALAMIUM

Question 2:

What questions do you have for your teaspoons? What questions do your teaspoons have for you?

Why do I always loose you? Why do you always end up in the garbage disposal? Do you like being plunged into the brown sugar so much? What's your favorite spice?


Why do you us so much? Can you please keep us together on our keyring? We are a teaspoon family.  Can you stop losing us? Do you not like us? We like you. Can you keep us in the brown sugar from now on?

Question 6:

What will you do next?

Well, I am dog sitting in a few weeks. Bask in my pride. In all honesty, I do not know what my next writing adventure will be but I do have a plan for a submission to the Found Poetry Review. And..I am seeing Bill Nye on Sunday.. what??

OuliPost...I am really happy we had a chance to meet.

OULIPOST #30: PATCHWORK QUILT--The Grand Finale

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

The process: 
I pulled full lines, and then just some words from each poem and I worked backwards. The first word is from April 29th and last word is from April 1st. Sometimes, I pluralized a word..sometimes I didn't. 

So long Oulipost, it's been real...

The result:

Quilt

Chief clumsily lingers
Vaporized by 
Elements, 
read like a mystery novel
Revenge

Another postcard
For friends

Don’t be afraid
Blessing has the burden
Until it’s all a happy memory

Lived it.
Around-the-clock

Capsules appear
We run

Pain
A lack of heart
We must be strong
Half fatal

Critics swiftly confirm
Chief,
Earns their praise
While urban disunion rises
There was a problem

Radicals faced with a particular group
May day


People are still angry

OULIPOST #29: MILLER HIGH LIFE

The prompt:

The name of this procedure is taken from the soft drink marketed as “the champagne of ginger ales.”  (Or in my case...Miller High Life..the champagne of beers.) 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.

The process:

Well, since I didn't have any direction, I just took one. I wanted to use some rhetorical tropes. I was lame and just used alliteration but I may have spelled something with the title and the letters at the beginning of each line. Can you guess what it is?

The result:


Oh….

Child chief calls
Replace recently received 
An April agency allowed assaults
Potentially playing pledges

It’s impossibly improving
To the terms toll
Stepping state safety short

Other ones old or only open
Very vocal violations
Elections encourage everybody
Rising reporters record Republicans 

Source:

The A section of The Boston Globe. 29 April 2015. Print.

OULIPOST #28: MELTING SNOWBALL

The prompt:
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.

The process:
I wanted to get creative with this. I thought of real snowball and how it takes a bit for it to start to melt. So the title is 11 letters and then the next 2 lines are 10 and the next to are 9 and then it really starts to melt.  I also tried to abide by the rules and with using the word in the order that I found them. I think I did a pretty good with that part.

Also, it melts...

The result:

Resignation

Technology
Infections
Materials
Decisions
Clumsily
Suffered
Similar
Modern
Chief
Call
Who
To,
I
?


Source:
Borchers, Callum. Nanomedicine could improve surgical implants. The Boston Globe. 28 April 2014. Web.

Several other articles from the homepage of The Boston Globe. 28 April 2014. Web.

OULIPOST #27: IRRATIONAL SONNET

The prompt:
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.

The process:
I just started looking for iambic pentameter. I pulled pieces of lines and full lines themselves. It was quite difficult. The paper was full but since I've been baking all day...my mine is blank. I did change some tense and as with yesterdays poem, I wanted it to say something. Something that stands up. 

The result:


A theory that just might explain origin

Learning their lines by heart, they soar, they sear
They linger in the memory, he died
It’s a small group of sympathetic friends

The scene was telling, and fairly typical

It felt charged with impact, streaming with light
Stop, look closely and you will see beauty
The interplay of cultures is the theme
Tell the world what the government has done

But one rich sector might just prove elusive

It never stops, this sort of unceasing 
On the hunt for the next generation
Villains who are victims of circumstance
Bold, creative acts of innovation
Bigger, stronger people will come, after

Source:

Several articles from The Boston Globe & The Globe Magazine. 27 April 2014. Sections A-N. Print.

OULIPOST #26: BEAUTIFUL OUTLAW (BELLE ABSENTE)

The prompt:

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.

The process:

As usual, I picked a short name and a name of a man who was a champion of democracy in Myanmar. I found his name in the Obituaries. I wanted to make this a quality poem for obvious reasons. I enjoyed the process because searching and finding cool words was intellectually stimulating. Plus, I was in a Starbucks for part of the writing process and now I smell like coffee and cookies. It's sexy. 

This took me a long time. I found it difficult to focus on this rainy day. Plus, I was hungry. I changed tenses and played with words a bit but I swear I used just about every article in today's paper. 

The result:

Win Tin

Democracy champion saving subjects from stabilizing pay and questionably picky taxes

Handles sharks, runs a bar, catches grenades, puzzles even more by exes of newly jammed quotes

Quick-fixes vary with him, majority rules, but widely sized gaps appear

Diversify and back common people; a jab; a warning—faxed—quickly—vaporized, how?

Abuses cause vast, flash attacks when more neglected people unjustly freeze next quarter

Quite a bit of love goes through him, you see, with the evil & hazards here: 

Pride

War

Smallpox

Cockfights

But

Truth speaks justice...

Sources:

Several articles from The Boston Globe. 26 April 2014. Sections A-G.Print.

Oulipost #25: Larding

OuliPost #25

The prompt: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.

The process:
I split sentences and tried to follow the rules. I almost mad-libbed it again but I start piecing things together.  An article about ducks cracked me up so I had to put in 5 ducks killed. 

I'll add more later....

Now, it's later. I just started finding sentences and half of sentences and putting them together. i think I used almost 10 articles. I think it came out..okay..

The result:

Duck Photography 

Photography, a technological marvel, was long considered an artistic stepchild.
Elements read like a mystery novel.
The federal government started a program in 1994, for scores of aspiring artists to debut their work.
What followed is a complicated saga that has produced more questions than answers.
 Illegal guns seized, opiate addicts and five ducks killed.
A less happy experience and the government has had second thoughts about the decision.
 “Arty” was not a term.

What often does not come up is the work.
Neighborhood groups encouraged to get involved. The way they join them is to copy them.
Like life, it’s all a big balancing act.
Today we think of the medium, as having been an art form from the beginning.

Source:
Several articles from The Boston Globe. 25 April 2014. Section A-G. Print.