OULIPO/Youlipo
 

Although poetry and mathematics often seem to be incompatible areas of study, the philosophy of OULIPO seeks to connect them. There are numerous OULIPO formulas to chose from. I find snowballing interesting. You can either start with one word and add another word and another until you have the poem you want or you can start with one letter or one syllable increasing by one each line.

An example would be
I
Am
Not
Sure
These
Poetic
Numeric
Artistic
Offerings
Challenge

or

restraints
constrict
creating
variety
control
focus
much
fun
me
u

or start with a one word sentence, build the story up sequentially with each sentence containing one word more than the last

Hungry
Just eat
Easy to say
Things always take priority
You would imagine from this
I would naturally be extremely skinny
But unfortunately there just aren’t enough things

There are all kinds of Oulipo formulas these are just some of my favorites. You can look up some and try them or try these or make up some poetic/mathematical formula of your own but hopefully you will give it a try. If you decide to make up your own formula could you add a line explaining what the formula is so others can try it? I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

A snowball in syllables
 

So,
I say . . .
here’s the thing:
it’s not you, (though
really, it is you)
i’m taking the high road
(happily, it’s traffic-free)
avoiding contact (or conflict)
just another weary traveller
checking the map for the exit to free.

Love it!! I'll start off with a tiny one...
 

Awesome snowballs you guys! I enjoyed reading them.

I have another snowball. It's a syllablc poem. It starts with one syllable goes up to a certain number and then comes back down to one.



E’er
Always
Infinite
Now falls from grace
Comfort lives in lies
The lexicon of life
Fiction as reality
Somehow translucently opaque
Stone replicas, imitating life
Zombie apocalypse is upon us
Ignore the end inherent in beginning
Blindfold dancing Gangnam style on the edge of time
Reality’s capacity for opacity
The performance of life is deserving of an Oscar
Minimal restrictions on portrayals suggested
Creatively recreating what is truth
Running slow motion through fields of flowers while
Passively participating in the
Oppression of those who are less than
Less than what is never made clear
Except for innuendo
And inference of a
Certain lack of worth
Geographic
Lottery
Aside
Die

Word snowball
 

If it turns out that we don’t win the lottery
and House Hunters International doesn’t find us a villa
on some tropical island we’ll decide to buy
just to live there alone like hermits
making art out of sea glass
watching the stars all night . . .
then this is the
way that I
see it:
Saturday
yard sales
croissants on Sunday
crumbs in the car
(they are best eaten warm)
making art out of cast offs
thanking our lucky stars for this life
entering House Hunters marathons in our TV spreadsheet
laughing because ten years ago I said "I never
watch TV", and your answer back then was "me neither".

(i had never heard of OULIPO/Youlipo. so i just did it my way. no formula. just a pattern. a+b=b+a)





an axiom
you and me
you and me
an axiom

the relative truth
and other relative truths
and other relative truths
the relative truth

on every slope
and every curve
and every curve
on every slope

the arch
of your parabola
of your parabola
the arch

and your vertex
a starting point of reasoning
a starting point of reasoning
and your vertex

such a postulate
x and y intercepts
x and y intercepts
such a postulate



mac august 2013

Love it.
 

Fear
foe, fum
I am intemperate
And cannot change life
I can change my perception
Like an opiate at receptor mu

I guess it is seldom but rather random
if not random then it could be perpetual
this thing called love or lover's knot
not even close to like or liked
But who could know it's worth
if worth could be measured
breadth, depth or pi-r-square
hexicylindrical illusionist you
are you,
you?
You,
you are,
shapeshifter drifter
spy extraordinaire, bushmaster
binocular, unfocused hocus-pocus
kaleidescope of broken glass
shards of unspoken polysemous carnage
jumbled understanding of mistaken attempts
disguised as clownish 80-proof mocked-up irony
heir apparent of radio-head with broken antennae
physicist of un-scientific mathematical preponderancy of statistical errors.


(I have no idea what I was trying to say and I don't know if I was doing it right;
but I gave it a try and will try it again, soon, I think)