QUILLFYRE’S #OULIPOST 13 EPITHALAMIUM

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Today’s Oulipost prompt: An Oulipian epithalamium, or marriage song, is one composed exclusively with the letters of the names of bride and groom (bride and bride, groom and groom, etc). Visit the engagement or wedding announcements section of your newspaper and select a couple. Write a poem using only words that can be made with the letters in their name. You may choose to use first names only if you prefer anonymity or full names if you’re desperate for more letters.

Sounded simple enough. I’ve written one before. Well, almost. I wrote a reverse epithalamium, a non-epithalamium about a wedding that did not take place.  The first difficulty was that there is no longer a section for these announcements in the paper. Going to the link showed me announcements for weddings that happened in 2004-2005!

So, I stole a trick out of a fellow Ouliposter’s bag, thanks Amanda Earl!  I used my own name and the name of my second husband. That gave me a good selection of letters, all but D, F, M, Q, U, V, X, Y, Z.  Amazing though the number of good solid words that ruled out, with no D, no F and no M.  Even a Y would have come in handy at one point.

The second difficulty was that even though I had a fair number of words to choose from, there was a high count for repetitions.  The first article gave me 378 words according to Word but SortMyLIst said there was 47.  (Didn’t check the second article.)

I won’t bore you with the lists themselves, but here is my epithalamium, the bride’s words to the groom. The names I used?  Carol Anne Swaebe Stephen and John Attila Galko.  It was sad to write as John died 10 years ago, but good memories even so.

As We Begin Again

Bridal bouquet

Bridal bouquet (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

This is the best thing, where
two can be one, the past
opening to the heart,
to tears,
to new secrets,
to start in one last season.
To know when to
take this step.

We were.
We are.
We will be
two as one,
the heart wearing no holes,
It is all the breath
that knows no longer night.
–CAS April 13, 2014

 

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QUILLFYRE’S #OULIPOST 12 SONNET

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Today’s Oulipost challenge: Write a sonnet sourced from lines found in newspaper articles. You may choose your own sonnet type. ( Examples here) and should feel free to be creative with the rules. One known Oulipo variation is “sonnets of variable length,” in which one must compose a sonnet in which the lines are either as short as possible or as long as possible.

I thought at first about doing a word sonnet, but once I had chosen the article I planned to use, that didn’t seem like it would work quite the way I wanted. I read briefly about Berrigan’s sonnets and decided to go with a very loose variation. I also went with 3 quatrains and a closing couplet.

 

To Learn More About Swooping
—Variation on a Berrigan Sonnet

English: A young White-backed Vulture in Mikum...

English: A young White-backed Vulture in Mikumi National Park (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

One more drop into the sky,
that first dive from the heavens:
a cobalt breeze, a soft blue sky.
Free fall emotion in love again.

Practising three hours a day
at too steep an angle, he let go
to learn more about swooping, fast
and low, too close to the ground.

A chain two feet too long
can change a man’s character
in a cloud of dust
two storeys into the air.

To mourn the world,
he’s learning to drive.

CAS April 12, 2014

 

  • Source: Skydiver makes peace with the heavens, By Andrew Duffy, Ottawa Citizen PRINT EDITION April 12, 2014 (E1)
English: Shakespeare's sonnet 1

English: Shakespeare’s sonnet 1 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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QUILLFYRE’S #OULIPOST 11 UNIVOCALISM

Ouliposter-Badge-Plum-300x300A univocalic text is one written with a single vowel. It is consequently a lipogram in all the other vowels. If he had been univocally minded, Hamlet might have exclaimed, “Be? Never be? Perplexed quest: seek the secret!” All words used must be sourced from your newspaper.

 

 

For the univocalism exercise I chose two articles, and two vowels, O and E, selecting all words in both pieces that contained either vowel.

Here are the words I have to work with:

O

on, of, cool, from, or, to, to, CO2, how, to, cool, cool, CO2, from, or, to, con, would, fool, to, from, so, slowly, on, from, both, should, of, tool, to, to, on, for, of, CO2, from, on, should, also, could, from, or, orb, to, short, of, pro, con, to, of, doubts, of, of, oxford, worth, to, to, of, among, of, to, of, of, on, now, work, on, for, to, on, to, to, worry, would, world’s, from, to, low, to, hold, not, work, of, how, to, pro, CO2, from, to, to, of, don’t, or, no, knows, to, or, to, to, cool, from, known, or, on, or, to, grow, crops, CO2, from, pow, to, CO2, CO2, from, only, opt, drop, long, cord, to, on, alcohol, ago, alcohol, for, down, from, of, to, port, drop, to, drop, con, long, of, to, drop, to, of, sold, also, to, of, sold, to, to, from, son, of, of, stood, from, on, of, alcohol, from, opt, from, of, from, for, to, down from, son, son.

E

sheets, germ, sheets, keep, the, melt, the, reflect, the, net, net, reflect, expert, press, week, whether, be, the, keep, check, the, week, the, the, the, every, reflect, seen, even, express, present, there, level, these, Steve, he, get, better, sense, whether, there’s, these, they, be, they, new, set, be, references, they be, energy, energy, seems, ever, rent, be, levels, the tech, yet, whether, they, tech, be, tech, effect, tech, them, effect, the, the, tested, energy, the, then, them, the, then, deep, net, effect, beer, term, trend, less, beer, spent, the, per cent, beer, the, the, ended, per cent, beer, fell, per cent, beer, per cent, the, term, trend, beer, the, per, per, beer, fell, grew, per cent, beer, fell, per cent, beer, per cent, were, per cent, the, per cent, the per cent, per, per, per, per, the, beer, per cent, the, term, per cent, per cent the, netted, the, end.

Here are my draft Univocalism poems, INCLUDING the titles, although I stretched a bit using numbers for the first one:

 

Alcohol Sold 2013 = $21B

ball-and-stick model of CO2: carbon dioxide

ball-and-stick model of CO2: carbon dioxide (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Crops grow for alcohol
world ports drop—
sold from son to son.

How to cool?
CO2, would work
to cool.

Sons worry,
doubt worth,
opt for alcohol
drop down
from cool to fool—
POW!

 

BEER ENERGY EFFECT

A Kranz (wreath) of Kölsch beer.

A Kranz (wreath) of Kölsch beer. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Keep the sheets.
Check the germ level.

The net effect every week
seems better whether beer per cent fell.

The term trend references less energy spent,
the deep expert levels set.

The beer tech, tested,
netted end present germ energy effect.

– CAS April 11, 2014

 

Sources:

(Unfortunately I am unable to show the text I used to select my words, as neither chosen articles appear in the digital edition, only in print. CAS)

 Canadian Press, The Canadians are buying more wine, less beer, Ottawa Citizen print edition, April 11, 2014 F1

 Ritter, Karl The Associated Press, A cool idea or mad science? Ottawa Citizen, print edition, April 11, 2014 C5

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QUILLFYRE’S #OULIPOST 10 SNOWBALL

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This procedure requires the first word of a text to have only one letter, the second two, the third three, and so on as far as resourcefulness and inspiration allow. The first word of a snowball is normally a vowel: in English, a I or O.

From your newspaper, select a starting vowel and then continue adding words of increasing length from the same source article or passage. Challenge yourself further by only using words in order as you encounter them in the text.

Here’s what I came up with, bending the punctuation a bit to remove hyphens and add a possessive. I also put only one word per line, while still having the words increment one letter at a time/per line.

 

Spring Arrivals

A
Do!

The
ewes’
lambs,
dozens,
newborn
triplets.

Honeymoon
offthegrid,
university
cheesemakers
Experimenting,
wobbly-legged.

CAS 4/10/14

 

English: Sheep and lambs in Switzerland.

English: Sheep and lambs in Switzerland. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

SOURCE:

Robin, Laura Arrival of the lambs at Milkhouse Farm and Dairy Apr 10, 2014 print edition, Ottawa Citizen in Food & Drink

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