tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36513668323984464982024-02-07T00:35:59.445-08:00(re)oulipoDr. Heinrich Odomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17587356747532359987noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3651366832398446498.post-7711685642007909072009-04-05T20:06:00.000-07:002009-04-13T17:47:17.719-07:00InclusionInclusion refers to one or more texts being contained within another. (Several different Oulipian methods can be classified under the heading of inclusion.) The poem below was composed using a procedure invented by poet Paul Braffort, whereby the blanks in the poem can be filled by either one of two specific letters, producing a coherent text in each case. In this example, the reader fills the blanks with either ‘m’ or ‘d.’<br /><br />Circle 8 1/2<br /><br />A certain drea_ came back to me<br />As I was walking through the _oor;<br />A _eal I’d finished once at dawn;<br />The desolate ri_e the day before.<br /><br />That night, greeting the sinister _en,<br />I _ulled, with gin, my looming choice:<br />To tell the agents it was hi_,<br />And show the constancy of _ice—<br />Or to refuse, and in my pri_e,<br />Give cover to my treasonous _ate.<br /><br />As evening spreads its silent _ark,<br />I _ock my years with the poppy’s taste--<br />And spy the co_ing of the guilt<br />That whispers to me every _ay.Dr. Heinrich Odomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17587356747532359987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3651366832398446498.post-78040207707192419192009-01-07T19:46:00.001-08:002009-01-07T19:46:25.221-08:00Avalanche<span style="font-style: italic;">An avalanche is a series of snowballs, with each individual snowball consisting of one more line than its predecessor. (For an explanation of the snowball form, please follow this link: http://reoulipo.blogspot.com/2007/07/diamond-snowball.html)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The following is an eight-stanza avalanche:</span><br /><br />Outside<br /><br />I—<br /><br />O,<br />Me—<br /><br />I<br />Am<br />Not.<br /><br />I<br />Am<br />All<br />Gone—<br /><br />A<br />By-<br />The-<br />Book-<br />Death,<br /><br />A<br />No-<br />Win,<br />Time-<br />Spent<br />Corpse.<br /><br />I<br />Go<br />Out<br />Past<br />Flesh,<br />Toward<br />Nothing;<br /><br />“I”<br />Is<br />The<br />Dark<br />Thing<br />Beyond<br />Eulogy’s<br />Precinct.Dr. Heinrich Odomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17587356747532359987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3651366832398446498.post-8673102646863767802008-11-16T18:52:00.000-08:002008-11-16T19:12:16.742-08:00Tautogram<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">The tautogram is among the easiest Oulipian forms to explain; it is simply a text in which each word begins with the same letter. Please find an example below.<br /><br /></span><span>Time-Honored Tale<br /><br />The tree tops trembled through twilight, timbers tapping townhouse turrets, telling troubling tales. Teenage toughs trolled the thoroughfares, tormenting timid Trinidadian taxi-drivers. Trying times turned these teens to terrorism; they talked treason, thoughts trained toward toppling the town’s triumphalist theocrats. Townsfolk tip-toed to their tedious tasks thanks to timebomb threats telephoned to the town’s trains. Theocrats took to tapping telephones, tasing those they tagged terrorists, tarring them thieves through trumped-up trials.<br /><br />Timothy thought the terrorists told the truth, took to transcribing their theories, titillating the town, taunting the theocrats to tussle typographically. The trigonometry teacher told Tim to think twice; Tim through thrice, then typed thirty tropes taking temple-goers to task. The theocrats, trying to thin the tension, trimmed taxes, tariffs, tolls. Tim trumpeted, “Tired tactics! The theocrats tremble!” Traders took their trade to tranquil towns; tension tripled; the terrorists thought the town tilted toward them. Tim typed tracts that told the townsfolk to tear through the theocrats’ temple. The townsfolk, tempers throbbing, took to the thoroughfares to thump the theocrats. Theocrats toppled, the terroristic teenage toughs took the throne.<br /><br />Twilight threaded through town, thorny trees twisting toward townhouses. Triumphant, the terrorists took to tapping telephones, tasing those they tagged theocrats, tarring them thieves through trumped-up trials.<br /></span></span>Dr. Heinrich Odomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17587356747532359987noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3651366832398446498.post-22120900179144897662008-10-26T15:29:00.000-07:002009-04-13T17:43:08.940-07:00Obama and I<span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;" >The following text does not fall under any particular Oulipian rubric; but as a permutation of another text’s structure, it partakes of the Oulipian spirit. In this case, the original text is Jorge Luis Borges’s classic meditation on the elusiveness of identity, “Borges and I,” altered to substitute Barack Obama—or rather, “Barack Obama,” whomever that may be—for Borges’s speaker. The problematic relationship between public and private identities detailed in the original, while certainly of great concern to Borges, is a subject with a thousand fold more relevance to the life of a politician and inspirational figure like Obama.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:georgia;">Obama and I</span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;" ><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:georgia;">The other one, the one called Obama, is the one things happen to. I walk through the streets of Chicago and stop for a moment, perhaps mechanically now, to look at the arch of an entrance hall and the grillwork on the gate; I know of Obama from the news and see his name on a campaign ad or in a blog entry. I like basketball, writing, loafing with my kids, Christianity and the prose of Toni Morrison; he shares these preferences, but in a vain way that turns them into the attributes of an actor. It would be an exaggeration to say that ours is a hostile relationship; I live, let myself go on living, so that Obama may contrive his politics, and this politics justifies me. It is no effort for me to confess that he has outlined some valid policies, but those policies cannot save me, perhaps because what is good belongs to no one, not even to him, but rather to the public and to the future. Besides, I am destined to perish, definitively, and only some instant of myself can survive in him. Little by little, I am giving over everything to him, though I am quite aware of his perverse custom of falsifying and magnifying things.<br /><br />Spinoza knew that all things long to persist in their being; the stone eternally wants to be a stone and the tiger a tiger. I shall remain in Obama, not in myself (if it is true that I am someone), but I recognize myself less in his orations than in many others or in the laborious blowing of a saxophone. Years ago I tried to free myself from him and went from the machine politics of Illinois to games with hope and change, but those games belong to Obama now and I shall have to imagine other things. Thus my life is a flight and I lose everything and everything belongs to oblivion, or to him.<br /><br />I do not know which of us has written this page.</span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;" ><br /><br /></span><a style="font-family: georgia;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTrjUj86WuJJY7Mljzf1dYMcrebOqBcr8Wio2n2a2VNAYhwVkE6qxRCXnCJqA8eWFkfTn5qSvG5BfhIK3t3g-ocg5_eSppBjgo1BQd2E83LBId9ufdQS2P2IEncMbwx4zWb4zRI12Ts4A/s1600-h/windowslivewritersmokeemifyougotem-12634obama-smoking2.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 154px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTrjUj86WuJJY7Mljzf1dYMcrebOqBcr8Wio2n2a2VNAYhwVkE6qxRCXnCJqA8eWFkfTn5qSvG5BfhIK3t3g-ocg5_eSppBjgo1BQd2E83LBId9ufdQS2P2IEncMbwx4zWb4zRI12Ts4A/s200/windowslivewritersmokeemifyougotem-12634obama-smoking2.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261593921275304562" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;" ><br /></span>Dr. Heinrich Odomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17587356747532359987noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3651366832398446498.post-21000802147291176472008-09-11T19:31:00.000-07:002008-09-11T19:36:32.877-07:00Univocalism<span style="font-style: italic;">A univocal passage is, quite simply, a passage that contains only one vowel. As noted by Harry Mathews in the</span> Oulipo Compendium, <span style="font-style: italic;">we can also describe a univocal text as a lipogram in the excluded vowels. (To review, a lipogram is a text composed without one or more letters of the alphabet.)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Below is a short poem in which 'o' is the only vowel.</span><br /><br />Doom<br /><br />Mold grown on pools,<br />Blood color'd moons,<br />Old Scots' drool,<br />Trod-on cocoons,<br /><br />Gowns torn on thorns,<br />Cold, hollow rooms,<br />Long spools of worms,<br />Gorgons on shrooms,<br /><br />Porn sold to clowns,<br />Chloroform spoons,<br />Forlorn port towns,<br />Bottoms of tombs,<br /><br />Condoms worn wrong,<br />Fog, torpor, gloom--<br /><br />Slow tools of doom.Dr. Heinrich Odomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17587356747532359987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3651366832398446498.post-85726559790492238642008-07-21T20:26:00.000-07:002008-07-21T20:46:06.775-07:00Lescurean Word Square<span style="font-style: italic;">Named for its inventor, founding Oulipo member Jean Lescure, the Lescurean word square involves selecting four words and combining them in every possible order. (The number of permutations of four words, and hence the number of lines in the word square, is 24.) In addition to the four words selected, a minimal number of words from necessary parts of speech are allowed for the purposes of lending the lines sense. Below is a rudimentary example.<br /><br /></span>The Skull Beneath the Skin<br /><br />The image of death haunts the body’s progress.<br />The image of death haunts progress’s body.<br />The image of the body haunts death’s progress.<br />The image of the body haunts progress’s death.<br />The image of progress haunts the body’s death.<br />The image of progress haunts death’s body. <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""></span>The death of the image haunts the body’s progress.<br />The death of the image haunts progress’s body.<br />The death of the body haunts the image’s progress.<br />The death of the body haunts progress’s image.<br />The death of progress haunts the image’s body.<br />The death of progress haunts the body’s image. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""></span>The body of the image haunts death’s progress.<br />The body of the image haunts progress’s death.<br />The body of death haunts the image’s progress.<br />The body of death haunts progress’s image.<br />The body of progress haunts the image’s death.<br />The body of progress haunts death’s image. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""></span>The progress of the image haunts death’s body.<br />The progress of the image haunts the body’s death.<br />The progress of death haunts the image’s body.<br />The progress of death haunts the body’s image.<br />The progress of the body haunts the image’s death.<br />The progress of the body haunts death’s image.</p> <br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>Dr. Heinrich Odomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17587356747532359987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3651366832398446498.post-12133323833901874942008-06-27T18:01:00.000-07:002008-07-15T18:54:22.393-07:00Irrational Sonnet<span style="font-style: italic;">An irrational sonnet is a 14-line poem composed of five verses, with each verse containing 3, 1, 4, 1 and 5 lines, respectively (3.1415 being the first five digits of pi, the most well-known irrational number). The rhyme scheme for such a sonnet, as devised by Oulipo member Jacques Bens, is AAB C BAAB C CDCCD. Below please find an example dealing with the subject of surveillance.<br /><br /></span>Surveillance<span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span> <p class="MsoNormal">It was becoming difficult to be–<br />Without (at the same moment) being seen.<br />Surveillance’s continuous saccades</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Were there, profiling each chattering ‘I,’</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Assembling Cubist portraits from snapshots<br />Of e-communiqués and satellite feeds–<br />Small slivers of what makes us ‘you’ and ‘me,’<br />All siphoned from the web and then re-thought</p> <p class="MsoNormal">According to the <i>Weltanschauung</i> of spies.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p>The borders separating truth from lies<br />Had dimmed, as context spun from our control,<br />Relinquished to the media’s shifting light....<br />We pined after identity by night,<br />Then held our secrets closer to our souls. <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <span style=""></span>Dr. Heinrich Odomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17587356747532359987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3651366832398446498.post-41114963698652183072008-05-29T20:33:00.000-07:002008-05-29T20:35:07.071-07:00Homosyntactical Translation<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: italic;">Homosyntactical translation is a method in which the writer retains the syntactical structure of the original work and replaces each word with another instance of that word’s part of speech.<span style=""> </span>It is up to the writer to decide which parts of speech she wishes to replace; in the text below I replaced nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs (although some verbs and adverbs from the original were left in place).<span style=""> </span>The text supplying the syntax is Part I of Nietzsche’s preface to his “Genealogy of Morals,” while the words supplying the subject matter hail from the discussion of mushrooms in Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.”<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Genealogy of Mushrooms<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">We mushrooms are elusive to ourselves, and due to an unusual problem: how can we ever know to observe what we have never digested?<span style=""> </span>There is a fundamental syntax which reads: “Where a fungus’s spores feed, there feeds its creation.”<span style=""> </span>Our spores feed in the decomposition of our earth.<span style=""> </span>We are mutually amid death, indefinitely, being by ability indispensable tools and potent agents of this realm.<span style=""> </span>The horrific thing that dwells within our structure is the power to produce something entirely from the dead.<span style=""> </span>As for the energies of day—so-called “calories”—who among us is green enough for that?<span style=""> </span>Or has metabolism enough?<span style=""> </span>When it comes to such energies, our tissue is usually not in it—we don’t even alter our process. <span style=""> </span>Rather, as an organism necessarily exotic and subterranean in whose metabolism the moon has just stored the strange energies of night will presumably grow within waste and obtain for itself what flesh has nearly disintegrated, we only produce our enzymes during decomposition and ask ourselves, terrestrial and unconscious, “What have we really digested?”—or rather, “Who are we, really?”<span style=""> </span>And we break down the prodigious dead matter of our soil, our earth, our cycle, but seemingly digest wrong.<span style=""> </span>The eerie paradox is that we remain deeply invisible to ourselves, we don’t penetrate our own intelligence, we <i style="">must</i> lack ourselves; the words, “Each fungus is farthest from itself,” will surround us to all time.<span style=""> </span>Of ourselves we are not “digesters”….</span><br /><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: italic;"></span>Dr. Heinrich Odomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17587356747532359987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3651366832398446498.post-65442044970522632792008-04-30T19:10:00.000-07:002008-06-27T18:18:31.986-07:00Eye Rhyme<span style="font-style: italic;">"Eye rhyme” refers to a pair of words that rhyme on paper, but not in the ear; that is, words that end in the same sequence of letters, but with different pronunciations (“through” and “rough” being a prime example).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Below is a sonnet composed of eye rhymes—with some fudging.</span><br /><span style="font-size:0;"></span><br />The Inheritance<br /><br />My love and I were singing in the heat<br />That rose from meadows laced with summer dew--<br />Our minds had shed utility’s caveats,<br />Attired in thoughts that only gods could sew.<br />The insect world of ethernet and train<br />Seemed distant to our wine-soaked ecstasy;<br />We swore blood oaths never to work again--<br />Never to be quotidian or easy.<br />We served ourselves the universe to taste,<br />Crushed money underfoot to make our vintage;<br />We dreamed in red, the members of a caste<br />Who keep their youth as each commuter ages.<br />We drank and danced until the day was done,<br />And love was lost to vacuums in our bones.<br /><span style="font-size:0;"></span>Dr. Heinrich Odomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17587356747532359987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3651366832398446498.post-18145246158644025092008-04-05T10:06:00.000-07:002008-04-05T10:14:10.387-07:00Translexical Translation<p face="georgia" style="font-style: italic; font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: georgia;">This procedure consists of translating a source text into the vocabulary of a drastically different form of discourse while retaining the text’s underlying meaning.<span style=""> </span>The prose poem below only loosely qualifies as an example; in it, each question asked by the narrator of Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is rephrased as its own answer, and each answer begins with the kind of ass-covering probabilistic phrase used by U.S. spy agencies to describe potential threats in their National Intelligence Estimates—e.g. “we judge with moderate confidence that, etc.”<span style=""> </span>(The opening phrases of each line in this particular piece were lifted from the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Iran</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s nuclear capabilities.)<span style=""> </span><br /></span></p><p face="georgia" style="font-style: italic; font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: georgia;">The resulting passage doesn’t shed any new light on Prufrock’s character, but the easy fit between the National Intelligence Estimate’s phrasing and the chronic uncertainty of Prufrock’s voice hints at an institutional angst within the CIA, NSA, et al.<span style=""> </span>When knowledge seems shifty and elusive, endless self-questioning results, for intelligence agencies no less than for introspective narrators of modernist poems.</span></p><p face="georgia" style="font-style: italic; font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: georgia;">*<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"></span></p><p face="georgia" style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">The National Intelligence Estimate of J. Alfred Prufrock</p><span style="font-size:100%;"></span> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p>I judge with high confidence that I do not dare disturb the universe.</span></p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p>I assess with high confidence that I should not presume.</span></p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p>I assess with moderate confidence that I should not begin to spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">I continue to assess with moderate-to-high confidence that I should not presume.</span></p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p>I continue to assess with low confidence that it is perfume from a dress that makes me so digress.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">I judge with moderate confidence that I should not then presume.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">I judge with moderate confidence that I should not begin.</span></p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p>I recognize the possibility that I should say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets and watched the smoke that rises from the pipes of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows.</span></p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p>I assess with high confidence that I will not, after tea and cakes and ices, have the strength to force the moment to its crisis.</span></p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p>I do not have sufficient intelligence to judge confidently that it would have been worth it, after all, after the cups, the marmalade, the tea, among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me; that it would have been worth while, to have bitten off the matter with a smile, to have squeezed the universe into a ball to roll it toward some overwhelming question, to say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"--if one, settling a pillow by her head,<a name="notatall"></a> should say: "That is not what I meant at all.</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">That is not it, at all."</span></p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p>It is difficult to specify whether it would have been worth it, after all, would have been worth while, after the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, after the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor--and this, and so much more?—a growing amount of intelligence indicates it is impossible to say just what I mean!</span><span style=";font-size:100%;" > </span><span style="font-size:100%;">But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: it is difficult to specify whether it would have been worth while if one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, and turning toward the window, should say: "That is not it at all, that is not what I meant, at all."</span></p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p>I assess with moderate confidence that I will not part my hair behind.</span></p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size:100%;">I judge with moderate confidence that I do not dare to eat a peach.<br /></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ></span>Dr. Heinrich Odomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17587356747532359987noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3651366832398446498.post-33043040907964703322008-03-05T20:32:00.000-08:002008-03-05T20:41:19.198-08:00Snowball II<span style="font-style: italic;">For a description of the Snowball form/procedure, please follow the below link:<br /><br />http://reoulipo.blogspot.com/2007/07/diamond-snowball.html<br /><br />The following poem is an example of a standard snowball; the combined efforts of Thesaurus.com, various online catalogs of plastic surgery procedures, and my own vocabulary produced a poem that maxed out with a seventeen-letter word.<br /><br /></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center">Line <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Reading</st1:place></st1:City><br /><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center">“O,<br />To<br />See<br />Love<br />Again<br />Before<br />Evening,”<br />Lamented<br />Baggy-eyed<br />Waitresses—<br />Dereliction<br />Deliquescing<br />Rhinoplasties,<br />Disintegrating<br />Reconstructions,<br />Discombobulating<br />Microdermabrasion.</p>Dr. Heinrich Odomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17587356747532359987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3651366832398446498.post-54054097512651399432008-02-13T18:48:00.000-08:002008-02-13T18:58:26.528-08:00End-to-End<span style="font-style: italic;">The end-to-end method is reminiscent of poetic redundancy; but whereas the latter method involves shortening each line of a poem to its final few words, the former consists of removing the middle portion of each line, such that its first and last words are condensed into a potent burst of figuration and meaning (potent in theory, at least).<br /><br />When applied to the first section of Wallace Stevens's "The Auroras of Autumn," the end-to-end method yielded the following result:<br /></span> <p class="MsoNormal">The <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Auroras</st1:City></st1:place> of Autumn</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I</p> <p class="MsoNormal">This is the bodiless,<br />His head at night.<br />Eyes open every sky.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Or is this the egg,<br />Another cave,<br />Another body’s slough?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">This is his nest,<br />These fields, distances,<br />And the pines beside the sea.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">This is formlessness,<br />Skin disappearances<br />And the serpent skin.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">This is its base.<br />These lights attain a pole<br />In the serpent there,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">In another maze<br />Of body and images,<br />Relentlessly in happiness.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">This is his poison: disbelieve<br />Even in the ferns,<br />When sure of sun.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Made in his head,<br />Black beaded animal,<br />The moving glade.<br /></p>Dr. Heinrich Odomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17587356747532359987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3651366832398446498.post-85223826801262998022008-02-04T19:39:00.000-08:002008-02-04T19:47:20.828-08:00Cylinder (part 3)<span style="font-style: italic;">con't from the post of January 20, 2008 (apologies for the delay to any readers out there):<br /></span> <p class="MsoNormal">3.<span style=""> </span> “Dr. Howe–if you are hearing this, let me begin by saying that I have the utmost respect for your work as a physician.<span style=""> </span>While I was in medical school I read about your experiences researching and treating infectious diseases, and I thought I saw in them a woman dedicated not only to her profession, but to all of humanity.<span style=""> </span>Which is why I want you to know what I know. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“My name is Jorge Canosado, and I am a doctor from <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Colombia</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<span style=""> </span>A year ago I was forced to flee my country to protect my young family from political violence.<span style=""> </span>The men in power in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Colombia</st1:place></st1:country-region> do not stop at slander when attacking dissent, but my elders taught me never to suppress my own convictions, so I donated money to opposition candidates and wrote letters to my city’s newspaper protesting the government’s roots in corruption and violence.<span style=""> </span>I never thought of the consequences of my actions; I did what I did instinctively, because it was the right thing to do.<span style=""> </span>But one of my friends in the government told me that my words had drawn the attention of the dogs running <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Bogota</st1:place></st1:city>, and that my family was in danger. There are many sacrifices I would make for my country, but my family is not one of them.<span style=""> </span>So I fled north to the <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">United States</st1:country-region></st1:place>, coming to rest in your city, mopping floors in your hospital to support my wife and child, unwilling to risk exposure by practicing medicine in this country. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“I have no illusions about the purity of the <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<span style=""> </span>As a South American, I am too familiar with the <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s history of aggression in the world.<span style=""> </span>And you, as a native of <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">England</st1:place></st1:country-region>, must be disturbed as well by the potential for evil your adopted nation his displayed in recent years.<span style=""> </span>But what I have witnessed in the last few months....<span style=""> </span>I will not attempt to describe it; the videotape I have included will do so better than I ever could.<span style=""> </span>But I will say that in your hospital, in your division–under your nose, as they say–men are committing an injustice that terrifies even someone of my experience.<span style=""> </span>I leave it to you, as someone the American medical community respects, to decide how best to use the information I am putting in your hands.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The tape ran out.<span style=""> </span>Madeleine, her face drawn with concern, looked up at Charles, whose expression had not changed as he stared out at the lake through her sliding doors.<span style=""> </span>When she first heard the tape she had been puzzled, intrigued; now, after viewing the videotape of which Dr. Canosado spoke, she could barely suppress a wave of emotion on hearing his voice. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“I know what you want to do–” began Charles. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“I would hope so,” said Madeleine.<span style=""> </span>Charles paused and sighed before he continued. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“But we can’t do it.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Why in hell not?” said Madeleine, reverting to her youthful Cockney accent as her anger mounted. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Because if we do, our funding will dry up.<span style=""> </span>Along with that of many of our colleagues.<span style=""> </span>And all the good we’ve staked our careers on will turn to air.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Wait...,” said Madeleine, a dark realization spreading from the corners of her consciousness.<span style=""> </span>“You mean–,” </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“I don’t want you to think less of me, Madeleine, because I’ve kept silent about this.<span style=""> </span>You have to think about all the possible costs.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“You already know?<span style=""> </span>How long, Charles?<span style=""> </span>How bloody long?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“That doesn’t matter.<span style=""> </span>Here’s what matters: the man who left you these tapes is probably dead now.<span style=""> </span>And that’s how you’re going to end up if you speak to anyone else about this research.<span style=""> </span>You have to understand, Madeleine, that the men in that video draw their support from sources who aren’t so...civilized...as we are.”<span style=""> </span>Pronouncing ‘civilized’ here with bitter irony. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Madeleine was silent.<span style=""> </span>She thought of Coleridge’s image of slimy things crawling on a slimy sea, of a world turning demonic before her eyes and grant money hanging like an albatross from her neck. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“I take it from your silence that we’re in agreement?” said Charles, his voice laced with caution. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“I don’t know,” said Madeleine.<span style=""> </span>“I’ll have to think about it.<span style=""> </span>The prospect of losing–Charles,” her thoughts changing track, “why didn’t you tell me what was going on, if you knew?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Charles rubbed his forehead.<span style=""> </span>“I just didn’t want to saddle you with the guilt.”<span style=""> </span>He smiled ruefully.<span style=""> </span>“It gnaws at the insides, you know.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They couldn’t think of anything else to say.<span style=""> </span>He crossed the room and opened the door to leave, pausing with one foot in the hall.<span style=""> </span>“Promise me you’ll let me know first if you decide to do anything rash,” he said. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“I promise,” said Madeleine. </p> Two days later Charles received a package in the mail from Madeleine.<span style=""> </span>She had copied the VHS tape of the doctors’ conversation to DVD.<span style=""> </span>Included in the package was a brief note: “A reminder.<span style=""> </span>In case the gnawing ever subsides.”<br /><p class="MsoNormal">A week after that, Charles received another package, this time from an anonymous source.<span style=""> </span>It was another DVD, with another note: “We know you know.”<span style=""> </span>The gray sky outside was pressing down like the surface of Earth’s menacing double.<span style=""> </span>He went immediately to his living room and played the DVD, only to see:</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-style: italic;">(con't at the post of January 15, 2008)</span><br /></p><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:12;" ></span><span style=""></span>Dr. Heinrich Odomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17587356747532359987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3651366832398446498.post-53655216341765094572008-01-20T20:19:00.000-08:002008-01-27T12:35:11.041-08:00Cylinder (part 2)<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-style: italic;">(con't from the post of January 15, 2008)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">2. Two men in lab coats and ties sat across from each other in an immaculate office, one situated at the far left side of the frame, the other at the far right.<span style=""> </span>Their manner was familiar, easy, as if they were discussing a tennis match they had seen the previous night.<span style=""> </span>The man on the left, slim with whitening hair and wrinkles encroaching on his brow, sat drumming his spidery fingers together behind a large gray desk.<span style=""> </span>His cohort was twenty years younger, well-built, shaved head; reading, with an arctic calm, a draft of the write-up for a drug trial unknown to the vast majority of the medical community:</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“MRSA has made clear the need, not just to generate ever stronger antibiotics, but to do so at a rate an order of power above the rate at which resistant strains of microorganisms develop in response to these drugs.<span style=""> </span>It is our misfortune that the only sound method of accomplishing this goal is the following: 1) to infect a human population with a resistant strain of MRSA 2) to develop a new antibiotic to treat it 3)to re-infect a similar population until a new resistant strain emerges, and 4)to repeat the entire process ad infinitum.<span style=""> </span>Of course, this sort of continuous drug trial could not be undertaken publicly in a democracy such as ours–the media would portray it as an abominable deprivation of individual rights, an abuse of scientific power sufficiently grotesque to re-invoke, in public discourse, the cautionary horror stories of the Nazis and their eugenics experiments.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Yet the present study differs from the experiments of the Third Reich in one crucial respect:<span style=""> </span>the discoveries that it has yielded so far, and that further studies will yield in the future, shall be used for the benefit of everyone—not for the awful purpose of perfecting a race of supermen—,”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“I would suggest ‘grotesque purpose,’ rather than ‘awful purpose,’” interrupted the man on the left.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Yes, but I already used ‘grotesque’ in the preceding paragraph—‘an abuse of scientific power sufficiently grotesque,’ and so on, if you’ll recall.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Then perhaps ‘hateful’…‘awful’ has the lingering sense of ‘awe-inspiring,’ I’m afraid.<span style=""> </span>We can’t allow any phrasing that smacks of admiration for the Nazis.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Fair enough.<span style=""> </span>‘Hateful’ it is.”<span style=""> </span>He made a note in the margin of the page.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">This mundane editorial back-and-forth continued for some minutes as the younger man read the rest of the study’s introduction to his elder; who, as it became clear from a subtle undercurrent in the two doctors’ otherwise arid exchange, was his mentor.<span style=""> </span>Amid the deliberations over diction and syntax, a picture emerged of a scientific plot that included, in its operational costs, the all-but-certain deaths of dozens of the homeless, kinless and destitute living on <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Chicago</st1:place></st1:city>’s South Side.<span style=""> </span>The logistical details of how the men had procured their equipment and participants were still obscure, but they had already conducted their first round of trials—a fact that shined through with staggering, painful clarity.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Jorge Conosado stopped the tape with a grimace.<span style=""> </span>‘Participants’—the wrong word, he thought.<span style=""> </span>More like the old, inhuman ‘subjects’ that any scientist with an ounce of ethics had long discarded, along with its connotation of human beings as spiritless systems that experimenters could take apart and manipulate at will.<span style=""> </span>He took the tape out of the VCR and slid it into a manila envelope, along with another tape he had made the day before.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">His one-year-old son, Miguel, snored in the crib beside the bed he shared with his wife, Veronica.<span style=""> </span>As he stood up to leave he kissed his forefinger and touched it gently to Miguel’s head.<span style=""> </span>At the door he paused and surveyed his nascent family’s dim, decrepit basement apartment.<span style=""> </span>Then he left for the hospital.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Before he began his shift he let himself into the office of Dr. Madeleine Howe and placed the envelope on her chair.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Over the eight hours he worked cleaning the hospital’s Infectious Diseases wing, dread spread from his heart through his body like a network of tributaries branching off from a river.<span style=""> </span>There was no way he could have recorded that video with no consequences.<span style=""> </span>He knew from experience that conspirators could be sloppy, but never sloppy enough to let you get away untouched.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Dawn broke through the gaps between the callous high rises along the shore. As he fumbled for the key to his battered ‘96 Ford Escort, Jorge heard steady footsteps approaching from behind.<span style=""> </span>A flesh-colored smear appeared in the driver’s side window above the image of his shoulder.<span style=""> </span>Jorge spoke without turning around.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“No tengo dinero.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Please.<span style=""> </span>You know why I’m here.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Jorge shrugged and inserted the key in the door.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Surely you must have been aware, sir, that we have surveillance cameras of our own.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“The thought had crossed my—,” began Jorge, but the bullet didn’t let him finish.</p>That evening, Madeleine Howe arrived at her condo, put down her purse, shed her coat, and sat down to watch the first of two anonymous VHS tapes that had been left on her chair that morning. The screen showed:<br /><span style=""></span>Dr. Heinrich Odomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17587356747532359987noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3651366832398446498.post-13424720515996064272008-01-15T19:34:00.000-08:002008-01-15T19:51:07.279-08:00Cylinder<span style="font-style: italic;">A cylinder is a text in which the author arranges linguistic units so that the reader can begin at any of several different points in the text, read to the end, and come back around to where she started without any lapse into incoherence. This example from the </span>Oulipo Compendium <span style="font-style: italic;">works at the level of letters:<br /><br />Emit, mite, item, emit.<br /><br />Below find the first part of a cylinder composed of three micro-narratives (the second and third parts will follow shortly):<br /><br /></span> <p class="MsoNormal">1.<span style=""> </span>It was a film of a fluffy Maine Coon cat approaching a human hand.<span style=""> </span>Autumn leaves scuttling downwind over the gnarled roots of an oak tree.<span style=""> </span>As the cat sniffed at the can of tuna in the upturned palm, another hand appeared suddenly with a box cutter and slit its throat, blood gurgling out of the wound and spreading in an ellipse over the withered grass.<span style=""> </span>An impassive voice off screen: "Consider this a warning."<span style=""> </span>Then the DVD stopped. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Standing in front of the TV in his bedroom, Dr. Charles Silvering sighed the sigh of a man too exhausted to feel fear.<span style=""> </span>He could only think that it was disgusting and unfair of them to kill poor Clive, and even counterproductive, since Charles had long ago come to terms with the prospect of personal injury or death.<span style=""> </span>They had misread him and completely botched the threat.<span style=""> </span>All parties (and Clive most of all) would have been better served if they had sent him a film of his cat being held in captivity; then he would have felt compelled to meet their demands in a bid to save the one creature in the world he still loved.<span style=""> </span>As it stood, they had recklessly cast their only bargaining chip to the wind. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">He walked to the bay windows opening out on the overcast January afternoon, gray as Athena’s eyes, and dialed a number on his cell phone.<span style=""> </span>Now the truth had to come out, if only to spite them for killing Clive. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Yes,” said a female voice on the other end of the line.<span style=""> </span>The greeting was more a statement than a question. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Madeleine.<span style=""> </span>I’m coming over.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Charles?<span style=""> </span>Are you sure that’s a good idea?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“I’ll see you in ten.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal">It was a short drive along the lake from Charles’s suburban stronghold to Madeleine’s building on the far north side of the city.<span style=""> </span>She had left instructions with the doorman to show her guest to the elevators, and soon Charles was standing in the living room of her 30th floor condo, unsettled as always by the ivory-white carpeting and crystalline furniture.<span style=""> </span>She was reclining on a sofa and, in her husky British drawl, offering him a drink. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Not now, thanks,” he said, wearily unwinding the black scarf from his neck.<span style=""> </span>“Tell me you still have the records.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“From the hospital?<span style=""> </span>Of course, but–,” </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“We’re going public,” he said, turning on her television and DVD player and inserting the disc he had been clutching in his right hand. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Going public!<span style=""> </span>Why, Charles,” she said, eyebrows raised nearly off her forehead, “this sudden change of heart–it’s baffling.<span style=""> </span>I think you owe me an explanation.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“You’ll see.”<span style=""> </span>He crumpled down beside her on the sofa and pressed ‘play’ on the remote control.<span style=""> </span>“Just look what they did to poor Clive.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Clive?<span style=""> </span>Who’s Clive?” said Madeleine.</p><p class="MsoNormal">But Charles must have taken the wrong DVD from his player at home, because when the screen came to life, it showed an image that the two of them had seen, and despaired over, many times:<br /></p>Dr. Heinrich Odomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17587356747532359987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3651366832398446498.post-19348877704526090052007-10-29T20:57:00.000-07:002007-10-29T21:06:13.026-07:00Antonymic Translation: Psalm 23<span style="font-style: italic;">Briefly, antonymic translation involves replacing each word in a text with its antonym; or, if the word in question has no clear antonym, with the closest word to its opposite (i.e. "that" for "this," "was" for "is," etc.)<br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;">In the </span>Oulipo Compendium<span style="font-style: italic;">, Harry Mathews notes that the method's inventor, Marcel Benabou, intended it to be used only with nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs--a guideline I have followed below in my antonymic translation of Psalm 23.<br /></span><br />Psalm 23<o:p></o:p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Satan was my wolf; I shall not be sated.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>He frees me to rise up in red wastes: he abandons me beside the raging fires.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>He depletes my body; he abandons me in the thickets of sin for his anonymity’s detriment.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Yea, though I run through the mountains of the light of life, I will brave no good; for you are not with me; your cup and your bowl, they frighten me.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>You revoke a chair before me in the absence of my friends: you desecrate my feet with water; my plate is empty.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Surely evil and vengeance shall avoid me none of the nights of my death: and I will wander in the outdoors of Satan but briefly.</p>Dr. Heinrich Odomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17587356747532359987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3651366832398446498.post-52577237043773886002007-10-13T14:19:00.000-07:002007-10-24T20:41:56.157-07:00Delmas's Method<span style="font-style: italic;">In a text written according to Delmas's Method, all instances of an initial letter can be replaced by another specified letter without producing any nonsensical words. At least, that's my paraphrase of the entry written by Harry Mathews in the Oulipo Compendium. The exact quotation is as follows: "Its rule: in a given statement, a repeated initial letter can be replaced with another repeated letter without spoiling the statement's coherence." So a stricter interpretation of the method than mine could maintain that the sentence or passage that results from replacing one initial letter with another must make sense, and not just the constituent words.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The poem(s) below were written according to my looser interpretation, with 'b' substituted for each initial 'c' from the first poem in order to produce the second.<br /><br /></span><br />A Crass Death<br /><br />The body in the casket was met with doleful stares<br />From relatives and friends in midnight coats.<span style=""> </span>The air<br />Was creaking as the mourners whispered of his mode of death;<br />A canker on his spleen had sent him to his final rest. <p class="MsoNormal">His aunts all traded rumors that they found him in a car<br />Beside the seashore, where he coasted nights under the stars,<br />And got high with prostitutes, and saw a cutter sail,<br />And ate a sherbet cone beneath the laughing of the gulls;</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The cluster of escapes that he would manage here and there<br />From office, where his nerves were cooked by etiquette, and where<br />His creed was marked by distance and its monolithic terms—<br />A distance that was soon to be eclipsed by crawling worms.<span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-style: italic;">And, after the Delmas manipulation:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>A Brass Death<br /><br />The body in the basket was met with doleful stares<br />From relatives and friends in midnight boats.<span style=""> </span>The air<br />Was breaking as the mourners whispered of his mode of death;<br />A banker on his spleen had sent him to his final rest.<br /><br />His aunts all traded rumors that they found him in a bar<br />Beside the seashore, where he boasted nights under the stars,<br />And got high with prostitutes, and saw a butter sail,<br />And ate a sherbet bone beneath the laughing of the gulls;<br /><br />The bluster of escapes that he would manage here and there<br />From office, where his nerves were booked by etiquette, and where<br />His breed was marked by distance and its monolithic terms—<br />A distance that was soon to be eclipsed by brawling worms.Dr. Heinrich Odomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17587356747532359987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3651366832398446498.post-16813982403693419852007-10-01T20:57:00.000-07:002007-10-10T20:32:58.131-07:00Elementary Morality: "Methyl Gods"<p style="font-style: italic;" class="MsoNormal">In the "Oulipo Compendium," Harry Mathews notes that the poetic form the Oulipo have come to call "elementary morality" is not, strictly speaking, Oulipien. The reason is that this form doesn't involve any pre-formulated mathematical procedure for manipulating the basic materials of language (i.e. letters or parts of speech). Rather, the elementary morality is a form invented by Oulipo co-founder Raymond Queneau for what he said were "purely internal" reasons (according to the Compendium).<o:p></o:p></p> <p style="font-style: italic;" class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>A poem of this sort opens with three sets of two-line pairs.<span style=""> </span>In each of these pairs, the first line consists of three groupings of one adjective and one noun, while the second line consists of one such grouping.<span style=""> </span>After these initial six lines comes an interlude comprising seven lines of one to five syllables.<span style=""> </span>Finally, the poem closes with another two-line pair similar to those in the first six lines, in which words from the first part of the poem reappear in different arrangements.<span style=""> </span>Individual authors, of course, are free to experiment with their own variations on the total form.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p style="font-style: italic;"></o:p><span style="font-style: italic;">Below is a fairly orthodox example of an elementary morality. (Bear in mind that spacing, and not hyphens, is supposed to separate the noun-adjective pairs; unfortunately, the caprice of Blogger formatting has prevented me from laying the poem out properly on the "page.")</span><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"> "Methyl gods"<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p>Methyl gods -<span style=""> </span>Scorched metal - Screaming wheels<span style=""><br /> </span>Blue flowers<br />Clutching fingers<span style=""> </span>- Ripened film<span style=""> </span>- Bludgeoned zone<br />Joyless laughter<br />Dry willows<span style=""> - </span>Byzantine maps - Pocket doomsday<br />Blackened sneakers<br /><br />A picnic<br />Of moldy cheese<br />And pomegranates,<br />Spread out on grass<br />Trembling<br />By the banks of<br />The River <st1:place st="on">Styx</st1:place><o:p></o:p><br /><br />Dry gods<span style=""> </span>- Screaming flowers<span style=""> </span>- Joyless maps<br />Clutching doomsday <p class="MsoNormal"></p>Dr. Heinrich Odomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17587356747532359987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3651366832398446498.post-81942716788982186672007-09-25T20:04:00.000-07:002007-09-25T20:12:59.336-07:00Perverse: "A Litany of Seas"<span style="font-style: italic;">A perverse is created by combining half of one line of poetry with half of another.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The following example was created by taking six pairs of lines from canonical poems, splitting each pair in half, and joining the first half of the first line with the second half of the second (and vice versa). As indicated by the poem's title, the end word of each line is "sea." Citations can be found below.</span><br /><br />“A Litany of Seas”<br /> <p class="MsoNormal">We have lingered in the tragic-gestured sea,<br />The ever-hooded chambers of the sea,<br />By man and beast and by the winter sea.<br /><br />Among the mountains, earth and air and sea,<br />She sang beyond the rising of the sea.<br /><br />Have sight of Proteus, genius of the sea,<br />By night, with noises, if the freshening sea<br />Were a delight; and of the northern sea,<br />And bowery hollows of our western seas,<br />That have the frenzy crowned with summer sea.<br /><br />Feast them upon the kisses of the sea,<br />Under the quick faint wideness of the sea.</p><p class="MsoNormal">*<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Lines 1 and 2: T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”<br /> <span style=""> </span> Wallace Stevens, “The Idea of Order at <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Key West</st1:place></st1:city>”<br /><br />Lines 3 and 4: Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Adonais”<br /> <span style=""> </span> Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Morte d’Arthur”<br /><br />Lines 5 and 6: Wallace Stevens, “The Idea of Order at <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Key West</st1:place></st1:city>”<br /> <span style=""> </span> William Wordsworth, “The World Is Too Much With Us”<br /><br />Lines 7 and 8: Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Morte d’Arthur”<br /> <span style=""> </span> Lord Byron, “Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, A Romaunt”<br /><br />Lines 9 and 10: Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Morte d’Arthur”<br /> <span style=""> </span> William Butler Yeats, “Michael Robertes”<br /><br />Lines 11 and 12: John Keats, “On the Sea”<br /><span style=""> </span> Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Epipsychidion”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Dr. Heinrich Odomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17587356747532359987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3651366832398446498.post-13721381880357083432007-08-21T10:46:00.000-07:002007-08-23T06:53:35.820-07:00Beautiful InlawNot to be confused with the "Beautiful Outlaw," the "Beautiful Inlaw" is a restriction under which a writer may only compose using the letters already found in a given source text–i.e., a person’s name. The fewer letters in the source text, the more maddening the compositional process.<br /><br />The poem below was written using only letters from the name of the musician Polly Jean Harvey.<br /><br />"Her Harp"<br /><br />Hey raven hen,<br />Love-leery pen,<br />Pallor on nape,<br />Roar, never rape,<br /><br />Eve, revere hell,<br />Heaven: non-real,<br />Prayer: holy ploy,<br />Jeer every ‘he,’<br /><br />Prove venal nerve,<br />Prey on a perv,<br />Preen on a nave,<br />Have Johnny pay,<br /><br />Yelp on a prop,<br />Yearn on a lap,<br />Pearl-heavy hole,<br />Reap lovely joy.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.manchesterinternationalfestival.com/_client/images/uploads/events/PJ%20Harvey%20675.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://www.manchesterinternationalfestival.com/_client/images/uploads/events/PJ%20Harvey%20675.jpg" border="0" /></a>Dr. Heinrich Odomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17587356747532359987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3651366832398446498.post-54331395243450669632007-08-07T08:28:00.000-07:002007-08-07T08:33:25.128-07:00Larding: "Creekside Elegy"<em>Further larding below; this passage was inspired by the lyrics to the song "Railroad Murder Blues," by little-known indie rockers the Jailors U.K.</em><br /><em></em><br />Creekside Elegy<br /><br />The moonlight glazed the dirt road like a cake. He knelt by the water's edge, his face buried in her torn robe.<br /><br />The moonlight glazed the dirt road like a cake. It was the same dirt road that his truck tires had rumbled over that morning as he drove to collect on her debt. Midnight hung in the sharp autumn air, a silent verdict echoing across the countryside. He could still hear the cadences of her voice at sunup, pleading as he grabbed her shoulders and shook her frail body. A blot of smoke rose from the ruined trailer nestled in the stand of pines at the road's end, the negative image of dawn's promise and tranquility. At the start of the day she had stood in the door, clad in a threadbare pink robe, sipping the dregs from her coffee cup. A lump had risen in her throat as she heard his wheels coming up her driveway. It had only taken one match, and now there was nothing left but ash. He had obtained his revenge, extracted the price she had to pay for her unfaithfulness. Nothing left but the vanishingly fine grains of an incinerated dream. First her livelihood, then her life. A trail of sooty footprints led from the trailer's lot to the creek that ran beside the road. She had struggled until the end, her cries of anguish proportionate to the joy and generosity she had shown the world. The prints were the void he left in his wake, the bottomless aftermath of the evening's hateful passion. Now all that was left of their former happiness was a scrap of pink cloth. He knelt by the water's edge, his face buried in her torn robe.Dr. Heinrich Odomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17587356747532359987noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3651366832398446498.post-83540008071622007752007-07-17T10:50:00.000-07:002007-07-18T07:15:49.650-07:00Slenderizing<em>Slenderizing is a simple enough method; it consists merely of removing all instances of a given letter from a source text. The catch is that the resulting text must make sense, i.e., all the remaining words must be actual words. (Dearth becomes death, or dire becomes die, to give two macabre examples.) What results is, of course, a lipogram, albeit one that is especially frustrating to compose.</em><br /><br /><em>The poem below and its slenderized progeny are both originals.</em><br /><br />The Breach<br /><br />I grazed on a prawn as the ocean roiled<br />Through nights as sinuous as cinema reels,<br />Saw youths doing ninety, then braking, coiled,<br />Each breast streaming sweat behind each wheel.<br /><br />In the breach, feet always trapped on the gas,<br />Death was the wager that caused them to stray.<br />The strand’s portent wind was howling for crash,<br />But the drivers disdained the warning of the day.<br /><br />I sipped Sprite and gin, as the teenage vixens<br />All watched with a heart that crackled in sin;<br />Seeing these beaus in tempestuous frictions<br />Built up to a craving to shred the day’s skin.<br /><br />The maddening drip of time’s unending tricks<br />Dissolved as they laughed at the farce of the gods,<br />While I creased my brow, feeling branded and sick<br />By my ceaseless compulsion to pray to the clock.<br /><br />*<br /><br />The Beach<br /><br />I gazed on a pawn as the ocean oiled,<br />Though nights as sinuous as cinema eels<br />Saw youths doing ninety, then baking, coiled,<br />Each beast steaming sweat behind each wheel.<br /><br />In the beach, feet always tapped on the gas;<br />Death was the wage that caused them to stay.<br />The stand’s potent wind was howling for cash,<br />But the dives disdained the waning of the day.<br /><br />I sipped spite and gin, as the teenage vixens<br />All watched with a heat that cackled in sin;<br />Seeing these beaus in tempestuous fictions<br />Built up to a caving to shed the day’s skin.<br /><br />The maddening dip of time’s unending ticks<br />Dissolved as they laughed at the face of the gods,<br />While I ceased my bow, feeling banded and sick<br />By my ceaseless compulsion to pay to the clock.Dr. Heinrich Odomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17587356747532359987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3651366832398446498.post-62489084974092372432007-07-10T13:25:00.000-07:002007-07-10T13:32:26.393-07:00Larding: "These Squirrels Were Equipped..."The sentences I began with were from the claims of an Iranian blogger, "These squirrels were equipped by foreign intelligence services, but were captured two weeks ago by the Police" [and the subsequent quote by the IRNA] "I have heard about it, but I do not have precise information." I feel quite confident you can find the "article" should you feel compelled to look for it.<br /><br />"These Squirrels Were Equipped..."<br /><br />"These squirrels were equipped by foreign intelligence services, but were captured two weeks ago by the Police". Mr. Pebbles folded his newspaper in quarters, set it down on his breakfast nook table, adjusted his tortoise shell glasses, and sighed into his hand. Outside, the sun was in full riot among the tulips - a fair coup for July in Kentshire. 14? Then there was always the chance that Rocky was still alive. If any of them had survived it would be Rocky...tough little bastard, thought Pebbles sipping his tea. Mr. Maize in America would be calling soon, as would Home Office - so much to do. As he placed his newspaper in the sink and lit it with a pipe match, Pebbles remembered the first time he had met Rocky. It was Hyde Park in Autumn, and suddenly there he was, a Scurius vulgaria, 40 cm long from nose to tail, and red as an Irish terrorist - he appeared to be attempting to eat a smoldering cigarette. You don't want that, little fellow, he'd thought, moments before his precocious soon-to-be student blew a tiny smoke ring. Breezing through his espionage and subversion classes faster than many human students, Rocky had been a Scurius Savant, the obvious choice to lead the mission. And now, perhaps...the phone rang, Pebbles turned on the faucet, dousing the last flames of the newspaper.<br />"Pebbles."<br />"Yes, Gerald, I'm glad you're home. I assume you've heard the disquieting news."<br />"Yes, Gerald, I've only just read about it in the tabloids. No chance the Iranians are bluffing, I suppose."<br />"Doubtful, I'm afraid."<br />"Yes, I was afraid of that."<br />"You were close to one of them weren't you, number 67?"<br />"Yes, Rocky, my prize student."<br />"Well, about that, you see, several of our people around London have turned up dead. All of them connected to the Animal Recognizance division in one way or another..."<br />"What are you trying to say Gerald?"<br />"Well, Gerald, frankly you worked with this...animal. What are the chances he could have been turned? I only ask because...from our mapping of these murders, it all points toward your direction. In all your years of this work, have you ever heard of such a thing?"<br />Gerald Pebbles turned around into the sunlight, which now cascaded through the window and across the little smoke rings coming from the far side of the table. Stately, toothy, number 67 stood upright and flicked his cigarette into the sink - his incisors bright as angel's eyes.<br />"I have heard about it, but I do not have precise information."<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijgsTglNJFRKzQewyQRrpEvhppCWMkuip7AjRsm6gUcSirLFq3Zp1791dk9DTSfz5xn31QzZSvvr4eWdBmu_W4Fy-w2l1qUbZQmU1nu_vXnaSCle9x51Nofwj8UVVkYGoBj7hR8UussZo/s1600-h/180px-1SuperMorSm.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijgsTglNJFRKzQewyQRrpEvhppCWMkuip7AjRsm6gUcSirLFq3Zp1791dk9DTSfz5xn31QzZSvvr4eWdBmu_W4Fy-w2l1qUbZQmU1nu_vXnaSCle9x51Nofwj8UVVkYGoBj7hR8UussZo/s320/180px-1SuperMorSm.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5085668698248476530" /></a>Luke O'Harahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01204147594073814233noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3651366832398446498.post-87732906985237770562007-07-05T14:11:00.000-07:002007-07-05T14:23:15.972-07:00Diamond Snowball<em>The Snowball is a poetic form in which each line consists of one word, with the first word containing one letter, the second word two letters, and so on. The variation of this form represented below is called a Diamond Snowball, in which, following the middle line of the poem, each subsequent one-word line decreases by one letter, such that the final line of the poem is only one letter long. (Somehow, Diamond Snowball sounds like an innovative new strain of cocaine.) If letters don't strike an author's fancy, Snowballs can also be written with a gradual increase of syllables, words, or any other morphological or semantic unit.</em><br /><br /><div align="center">Imperial Passage</div><br /><div align="center"></div><div align="center"></div><div align="center">I<br />go<br />out<br />into<br />grimy,<br />random<br />streets,<br />imperial,<br />beholding<br />confounded<br />daytrippers’<br />functionless<br />perambulating–<br />unapproachable,<br />uncompassionate.<br />Metastatically,<br />schadenfreude<br />exterminates<br />sympathetic<br />appraisals<br />regarding<br />humanity,<br />cruelly<br />paring<br />until,<br />from<br />the<br />"we,"<br />"I."</div>Dr. Heinrich Odomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17587356747532359987noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3651366832398446498.post-54573151526712795822007-07-01T16:38:00.000-07:002007-07-01T16:46:12.324-07:00Chimera continued<span style="font-style: italic;">Below please find another Chimera (see the post from June 25 for a definition of the form). The source text is the paragraph in Ronald Reagan's farewell address in which he describes what he sees when he contemplates John Winthrop's phrase "a shining city upon a hill," a phrase that Reagan often quoted to describe America. The nouns from the paragraph have been replaced by the nouns from Sonic Youth's song "Tom Violence"; the adjectives, by the adjectives from SY's "Tuff Gnarl." The treatment does appropriate violence to the source; "shining city upon a hill" has now become "hard tit crush upon a sin." Which phrase better describes the United States at present?<br /></span><br />And that's about all I have to say tonight, except for tuff violence. The fatal smart dreams when I've been at that fast arm, I've thought a bit of the 'hard tit crush upon a sin.' The head comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> he imagined. What he imagined was killer because he was a hot Pilgrim, a hot young bliss. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a saving sonic home; and like the pig Pilgrims, he was looking for an experience that would be amazing. I've spoken of the hard tit crush all my strange honesty, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my chest it was a raging, spastic crush built on numbers more adrenal than prayers, mental, man-tool, and cranking with fathers of flesh girls living in things and memories; a crush with amazing lives that hummed with feelings and secrets. And if there had to be dirt flesh, the flesh had tongues and the tongues were lost to anyone with the night and the dreams to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.<span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />The original:<br /></span><br />And that's about all I have to say tonight, except for one thing. The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the 'shining city upon a hill.' The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place> he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free. I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still. <br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br /></span>Dr. Heinrich Odomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17587356747532359987noreply@blogger.com0