Snowballs

Since I was introduced to e.e. cummings, I've been obsessed with structural procedures, (really though, what high school poet isn't obsessed with e.e. cummings?). I know he didn't necessarily have strict procedures for his writings, but it got me thinking about where words fall on the page, and how. Many of his poems are pleasing to look at, and rhythmically interesting due to word breaks.

Then I was introduced to the OuLiPo, (how many times will I mention the OuLiPo? A LOT) a group whose procedures I've obviously been inspired by, and happened upon such wonderful styles as the acrostic and an even more restrictive snowball...

DEFINITION:

"Another OULIPO exercise uses the "snowball" technique, where the first line is one word long, the second line has two words, and so on. A snowball poem can also be made up of lines comprised of progressively longer words."

Hell, I even combined the acrostic with the snowball (yes I cheated), and did a univocalic snowball as well... Took me 2 days, but it was worth it! I promise I'll catch up to the 10 post mark today. I'll push myself (and do some easier exercises sheesh).

---------------------------------------------

Snowballs

1)

Snowball:

a poem

consisting of words

growing at each interval

until the poem gains momentum

eventually crashing into the reader's lap,

striking them on the face and exploding,

or flying wildly over their heads in sheer defiance

of the excited poet who cannot help but throw it!

2)

A

is

the

word

which

cannot

explain

abstract

materials;

E

is

the

only

vowel

having

vibrant,

powerful

frequency;

I

am

the

poet

stuck

firmly

beneath

limiting

processes;

O,

do

dot

onto

fools

strong

cocoons'

orthodox

clothwork

U

Lo,

Use

Lost

Anima,

Thread

Insipid,

Obdurate

Noisegunk.

Square Stanza

This morning has been difficult; a penetratingly malicious sleep-haze plagues me; coffee stopped working. Maybe Lewis Carroll can help... (snicker-snack)

The square stanza is an interesting limitation. Not only is it gimmicky (which is to say, for me, "fun to look at") but also adds new dimensions to your reading. I could imagine a cube poem--perhaps, a poem consisting of 6 square stanzas sharing borders and viewable as a 3D rendered object--being an awesome and challenging project.

There's also the simpler similar exercise known as a word square, which often has less of a point but is still a fun challenge. I can't personally write many that a 5 or more characters long, so I'll write some 4 letter ones.

Negative feelings, negative square stanza. (A nap will solve my issues I'm sure)

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Square Poem

Often   Filled    With      Fear      And      Doubt

Filled    To     Capacity    And      Still    Empty    

With   Capacity   Being    Beyond      My     Abilities    

Fear    And      Beyond      An     Immense   Energy

And     Still      My     Immense  Obstinacy  Resists

Doubt   Empty   Abilities   Energy   Resists   Energy

Word Squares

L        A        V       A

A        N        A       L

V        A        S       T

A        L        T       O    



H        O        L        E

O        B        O        E

L        O        O        K      

E        E        K        S



B        L        E        W

L        I        V        E

E        V        I        L

W        E        L        L

     

Definitional Literature

The varying disciplines of the OuLiPians has always interested me. Some of them scientists and mathematicians, some linguists and writers, they were/are a diverse lot. As such, some of them were more focused on "engineering" writing rather than drawing from inspiration, while others sought merely to expand their ability to write, create new and exciting texts, create potential literature.

There seems to be a struggle between aleatoric and constraint procedures within the OuLiPo. The famed "N + 7" method (link gives you the definition and a handy generator!) is fairly aleatoric, whereas the lipogram (A Void) or things like acrostics, anagrams, etc. are all very restrictive. And yet, often various OuLiPians spoke outwardly against aleatory (source needed). Strangely enough, they consider John Cage one of their favorite "anticipatory plagiarists," a man who's recognized for pioneering aleatoric music.

It is my personal opinion that they were not so staunchly judgmental--they were merely attempting to focus their public image, even if they claimed to disregard public opinion.

The focus on constraint was concisely defined by one of the founding members, Raymond Queneau in this statement regarding OuLiPians: "[OuLiPians are] Rats who build the labyrinth from which they will try to escape."

But what about their aleatoric procedures? Were they merely "fun" and "trivial" exercises or were they taken more seriously than the OuLiPo lets on?

One of my favorite OuLiPian procedures is definitional literature. This process exists outside of the realm of aleatory, but also outside of constraint. Definitional literature is defined thusly:

Definitional literature / littérature définitionelle (Comp.. p 133): each meaningful word in a text is replaced by its dictionary definition / chaque mot principal d’un texte est remplacé par sa définition dans un dictionnaire

See / voir :

Trial Impressions V  in A Mid-Season Sky: Poems 1954-1991  (Carcanet, 1992)

Really, because all your doing is replacing a word with its definition, you have very little control over the outcome of the piece, unless you write your own source text to use, of course. But where's the fun in that? (I actually think using both a poem of your own or another persons poems as source texts are fun...)

What's really awesome is when you take the definitional text and replace all the important words with their definitions again; repeat. I'd call this definitional larding (sorry for the sideways text; someone scanned a book!). Try it. It will in the very least expand your vocabulary.

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"To be, or not to be, that is the question..."

1) "To have presence in the realm of perceived reality, or to not have presence in the realm of perceived reality, that is the point at issue..."

2) "To experience the state or fact of being present in the domain within which the recognized, discerned, envisioned or understood state of being real occurs, or not to experience the state or fact of being present in the domain within which the recognized, discerned, envisioned or understood state of being real occurs; that is the essential thing that determines the matter at hand..."

"To err is human; to forgive, divine."

1) "To go astray in thought or belief is a characteristic of the nature of people; to pardon an offense or an offender, characterizes God."

2) "To act as to come into a state of being away from that which is right is a feature of the inherent disposition of human beings as distinguished from animals and other beings; to release (a person) from liability of a transgression describes the individual qualities of the one Supreme Being, creator and ruler of the universe."

"A rose is a rose is a rose."

1) "Any of the wild or cultivated, usually prickly-stemmed, pinnate-leaved, showy-flowered shrubs of the genus Rosa is a wild or cultivated, usually prickly-stemmed, pinnate-leaved, showy-flowered shrub of the genus Rosa, is a wild or cultivated, usually prickly-stemmed, pinnate-leaved, showy-flowered shrub of the genus Rosa."

Aleatoric Segments

As much as I love constraint poetry, (poetry that is written using very restrictive devices), I also love aleatoric poetry.

Yesterday, I compiled a poem using broken bits of overheard conversation in chronological order, but didn't touch on the idea behind aleatory at all...

a·le·a·to·ry

ˈālēəˌtôrēˈal-

adjective

1. 1.

   depending on the throw of a die or on chance; random.

I also love using segments of other source writings as my aleatoric text. In the past I've used students' papers at the library. Spitting out rapidly at the printer, I'd only get glimpses of their writing and would jot down as much as I could before I'd forget it, break the line there, and repeat with the next page, creating odd, disparate poems varying in topics, but sometimes combining line to line for some hilarious results.

Now that I don't have access to hundreds of students' papers, I've tried to find ways to recreate the process. Sure, you could open to random pages in books (I'll probably do that later), close your eyes and pick a sentence, but that to me still doesn't feel completely aleatoric because you still have a choice. I guess, thinking about it now, the library paper exercise wasn't truly random either... But, if you rely on a more strict set of rules, you can easily create totally aleatoric work.

This poem was written using the bolded words (and only the bolded ones) in the first lines of the classifieds in the Daily Advertiser. Again, sometimes the implied connections are wonderful. Try this one, it doesn't disappoint. You could even go to a friend's house and take the Xth sentence on the Yth page from each book on their shelf, the principle is the same.

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Will Trade

new gutters for like-new rainbow
a used potato chip

why allow the done room special! furnished
never worn; broken
professional alterations

Mardi Gras we buy GOLD!
will tutor your kawaii mahogany console five-piece

pearl drummer needs gig.

touch America black
100 used metal comedy outlaw lyricists
beauty salon and eight foot conveyor
beginners five piece salon equipment, downsizing

executive desks, work
two awesome cooking table saw, works
ten sets of 20 55 gallon metal containers for sale

wanted to buy huge reward! Lost found: blind chihuahua
will trade dirt for pillows of hope

Overheard Conversations

When I was at ULL, I took a fiction writing class because I wanted to take every opportunity to strengthen my craft and share work with peer groups. It ended up not working out, so I dropped it, but, I had a lot of fun right in the beginning.

The first day, the professor gave us an assignment: to sit down in a public place and write down the dialogue we overheard. We needed 3-5 pages. I sat down in Cafe Cottage and wrote for 3 hours. The results were hilarious, of course, and terribly sad.

I learned then that conversations don't usually sound like what you'd think. People tend to speak in segments, and taken out of context, it can seem like pure gibberish.

I've modified the exercise a bit, and have used it often but it never gets old so I figured I'd do it some more. I didn't worry about getting the entire conversation; in fact, the opposite is true: I only wrote down single lines overheard from individual conversations as I walked around the Blue Moon Wednesday night (during the cajun jam).

I plan on extending this writing by continuously adding new phrases overheard and will post a larger version in the future. For now, this short version gets the idea across. Coincidental poetry at it's best.

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Jamtalk

There's no way in hell I can find it
Hey hey hey!
I did wake up at 5 this morning you know
Is that the same bow?
Oh now we're getting fancy
I like it
That's the spirit. I like that spirit. That's the spirit I like.
Sometimes I just lay in bed and watch TV
There's something about it I really like
Have you ever heard of A Tribe Called Quest?
It's quite easy isn't it?
His skin is probably around here somewhere...
Hey I was still sleeping
The blackened catfish... It was...
BLOODY WANKER!
Girl you shake dat booty meat
I was talking to that Mexican girl you know the one drinking those fancy drinks
She can really dance hmm
Did she kick you in the face?
He likes guys with mustaches and beards I don't know why
I am sad but it'll be ok
Two Schlitz and cosmo, two schlitz and a cosmo
That's him. Yeah he's always like that
Got a light, love?
I've never danced that fast
There are two girls over there who don't have aaaaaaaaanyone to dance with hehehe
Look at my face!
Oh shit there goes another one!
Ready to go? Let's go.

Lists

A great man once told me that he wanted to write everything...

"Eviction notices, summons, manuals, instructionals, bumper stickers, pamphlets--I want to write all of these things. With poetry or fiction, the tendency is to attempt perfection and fail, but poets are perfectionists, we want to keep working and reworking, molding, cutting, pasting, sculpting. A poem is never finished. Often you get the idea that someone will see all the imperfections instead of the finished product, but what you have to do is stop thinking that anyone is going to read your work."

I mostly write for myself and other people happen to read it, but when he told me this I had just been published for the first time, and worried about what my "readers" thought, and that started to bother me. It wasn't until much later that I realized the beauty of the statement: I had no readers. If anyone were to read something I'd written, (say the aforementioned poem, "[Absinthe Piss]," published in ULL's journal The Southwestern Review '09), and they didn't like it, they wouldn't sit there and scrutinize it like I imagined they would--they'd merely turn the page and move on. Even if they did scrutinize my writing, tear it down and think negative thoughts about me, how would I ever know? Would it matter at all if I did? Or say they did like it, would they even take the time to look at my name, try to find more of my poetry? It's not likely.

When it comes to writing more mundane things however, your writing gains a certain power, particularly when people are forced to read it! But there are some forms of writing that are so mundane, so underwhelming, most people think reading them is pointless. Someone else's notepad, for example, detailing goals they need to accomplish at work, or what foods they ate at each meal, or grocery lists--most people find this sort of writing dull, non-poetry.

I'd like to argue the opposite. Poetry, like music, is everywhere. Like art, it's often free if you just look for it. What's stopping us from enjoying reading/writing lists?

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A Complete List of Objects On or Around the Desk in the Office at the Blue Moon Guesthouse

heavy-duty scotch tape dispenser

magnetic paper clip jar

salmon pink stapler

2 digital calculators, 1 black, 1 gray

green hand-made ceramic bowl containing: staples, a blue paper clip, a clear thumb tac, and 2 erasers

wireless telephone and base

small brown paper bag containing: 5 large and 3 small brass keys

black printer/copier/scanner/fax machine

large round clock with roman numerals bearing the words: Edinburgh Clock Works Co.

framed black and white photo of 9 women dressed like cow girls, labeled: Cow Girls - Cheyenne Frontier Days - 1929

white 3-ring binder labeled: Blue Moon Saloon - Events

manilla folder labeled: Trek America '13

small brown glass vase labeled: hurricane bubble; containing: large, blue-handled scissors; small, green-handeled scissors; 4 ball-point pens, 1 without cap; black sharpie; big black permanent marker labeled:
King Size; standard #2 pencil; flat yellow highlighter; fake rose.

19 sticky notes varying in color and messages

56 envelopes containing receipts from tabs left open at the end of the night

10 magnetic note clips

wooden mirror

framed cork board with 3 lists of phone numbers

12 push pins, 11 clear, 1 green

mac mini

black computer monitor

black and silver wireless router

cash register

credit card machine

red metal message bin labeled with: emergency contact information; containing: 3 manilla folders, a clip board, 7 sheets of paper, 14 Blue Moon business cards

white coffee mug

pair of silver prescription glasses

blue mechanical pencil

Canadian dollar

post-it note pad

yellow and pink invoices for printer ink

wooden jar containing: $23.77 in spare change; with wooden lid

2013 calendar (turned to August)

paper sign that reads: always always check a/c filters and under beds when cleaning a room! please and than you! xoxo

postcard from Brugge with a personal note

newspaper image featuring a regular guest dancing

Texas driver license

2 pairs of sunglasses, 1 burgundy cat-eyed, 1 transparent pink/yellow wide-eyed

fortune cookie fortune stating: Energy is equal to desire and purpose

picture of 13 people in a boat drinking beer and water

black and white picture of 4 women kickline dancing and wearing gas masks

small wooden shelf

mardi gras mask

Fransaskois flag

Intro/Minute Poems

The Experimentalist's Conundrum

I've always had an internal debate about constraint or process poetry and audience awareness. I struggle with the decision to either tell the reader about the writing process/exercise/constraint or let them appreciate the work for how it reads rather than what it might actually be. 

In Georges Perec's La Disparition, he doesn't have a preface that explains the entire book was written without the letter E, and we can assume this was intentional. Unfortunately, the cover of the english translation, A Void, features the letter E inside a big crossed out circle, telling the reader exactly what they're getting into before reading. It's not unfortunate because I think there's something explicitly wrong with directly telling your readers about your process but that Perec originally chose to do no such thing--he let the work speak for itself.

Of course in writing it, Perec must have known that once the word spread that he'd accomplished such a task, the process would become the reason people would want to read the book to begin with. When I read it, I couldn't help but notice the lack of E's at first, but soon got wrapped up in the story, which, without giving too much away (I'd highly recommend you read it), is basically about some people trying to find a missing person, who, they find out through reading his journals, was seeking an inexplicable something and seemingly disappeared in the process.

With that being said, I've always liked revealing my process. I do think however that when the process is simple enough it becomes obvious and is potentially more fun for the reader to realize on their own. On the flip side, if the process is vague or hidden, readers won't necessarily be able to appreciate the entirety of the work as they would if they had a certain foreknowledge of the process.

For the purpose of this blog, I'll be purposefully explaining myself even if it's not necessary. The idea here is to cure writer's block after all, and hopefully any of you out there experiencing similar apathetic vibrations will attempt to use these processes to lead to new creative works and ideas. Without further ado, I give you my first post on a hopefully long-lived and rigorous blog:

Minute Poems

You'll find that many constraints restrict vocabulary, in fact, the most recognizable and "acceptable" constraints do. Rhyme schemes, for instance, structural forms like sonnets, restrict vocabulary by requiring you to only use certain words. More complicated constraints such as those proposed by the OuLiPo  can limit your word choices even further (a good example is the above-mentioned lipogram).

As much as I like these types of constraints (you'll see a lot of them I guarantee), I feel like there's a lot of room to explore beyond simple word restriction. I've thought about potentially restricting space (like writing a poem on a rock or a pair of scissors), and I'll get around to that some day, but my favorite simple constraint is limiting the time you take to write a poem.

The following poems were all written in exactly one minute, without any sort of doctoring or editing after. I find the limitation extremely liberating and yet makes you eerily aware of the passing of time, simultaneously giving you the freedom to write, but imprisoning you in a cage of anxiety--but the results can be quite astounding, (or at least fun), and after 15-30 of these, you can sit back and see how much you wrote, which can cause you to implode with guilt in the sudden realization of just how much time your really waste day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute. Enjoy!

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1)

Freedom to move about
However you want

Stay still if you want
Don't talk to me

Have something to say
Now I can't think of

Any time, darling
Why not listen to the sounds

The air conditioner

2)

I expect to
Motion another syllable
There.
For the time being I've got to hand it to you
From another place
Found objects.

3)

Interconnectivity
Passive listening and a hum then
Silence against silence
Grains of motion
Wavelengths
Electromagnetic coalescence:

4)

There's always a sense of self-destruction
Lingering in the back of the mind
Similar to a tumor or other protuberance
Engaging it would leave me
Restless

5)

Dying then
Quietly
Emergingly
Birth

Some mythic aspiration
Dedicated

Steadfast existence
An attempt at being

6)

The dinosaurs were put here
Their bones cast
In an effort by
Who-knows
To divine what knowledge?

7)

It ends much differently than it began
Think of all the wonderful people
Their answers
And consider their thoughts

How many people
Really
How many?

8)

Egg-round
That is to say
Squarish
But without edges
Rectangular
Emphasis on rhomboid
Triangle-stuck
Paralellogram-driven
Visions of purity

9)

There is no such thing as waste
In the world of Green
Green movements stretching far
Valleys and valleys of Green
In my hand I hold a fleshy key
That opens up all the Green doors
And all the Green locks

10)

Lying here naked
I consider myself in the mirror
For once I think
I'm beautiful
But beauty is absent in the nascence of obscurity
Absent, but enveloping
Amniotic sac

11)

A world ago, lost sentience, trapped
Where is it you'd have me go?
And what would you have me do?
Laughing,
Your answer is nowhere, nothing;
My answer is here, everything,
But I'd never tell you.

12)

For a moment
But it comes in waves
Harder than a wooden eye
Or a metal tooth
Nails driven into skin
Lacerations of hair follicles
Down to the very roots
Infinity shreds

13)

Playing again
A duck sprays water off it's feathers
Leaves spiral down and up and whorls of them
Mud prints and polliwogs
Collapsing clouds

14)

Think of it like this:
a handgun

Then imagine:
a bullet

Let yourself feel:
the trigger,
tongue
and cheek

15)

Eyes sometimes too sharp
Look at me you can't can you
But always always touching
With your jagged breath
When, against the curb,
I lay my head