Topic outline

  • Assignments

    Assignment AT HOME ready on Tuesday 23 April (after Easter break)
    Do a layout that is as unreadable/illegible as possible. Print it on A3 paper and bring to class on Tuesday.




    Assignment IN CLASS Wednesday 17th Apr

    Do a google search OR open a news site OR your Facebook feed or Twitter feed. Hit command+C and paste everything on Textedit or similar. 

    Start by removing all the images, consider leaving out something, such as proper nouns (names). Remove all styling from the text - change it into “manuscript mode”.


    Continue by “mining” the mass of text you have. Use one of the Oulipo constraints to create a new poem/text of your own. If you want, you can make your own constraint, but stick to it.


    Try to limit your expression on only the text you have, and concentrate instead on making most of the constraint.


    One short text is enough, but if you have time, you can do several.


    Share the finished text(s) in .txt or .doc or .pdf in Drive.

    Acrostic

    A vertical succession of letters that, in a series of lines or verses, forms a word, name, or phrase in the beginning of the lines.


    Univocalism

    A text written with a single vowel.


    Lipogram

    A text that excludes one or more letters of the alphabet. The ingenuity demanded by the restriction clearly varies in proportion to the frequency of the letter or letters excluded. 


    Antonymy

    The replacement of a designated element by its opposite. Each word is replaced by its opposite, when one exists (black/white) or by an alternative suggesting antonymy (and/or, glass/wood).


    Snowball

    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.


    Tautogram

    A text whose words, or at least the principal ones, all begin with the same letter.


    Anagram

    The transposition of the letters of a word or phrase whereby a new word or phrase is formed. A simple permutation of letters can reveal a moon-starer in an astronomer or make a funeral real fun. This software can help: https://www.arrak.fi/en/ag


    Anterhymes

    Lines of a poem where the rhyme falls on their first syllables rather than their last.


    Chimera

    Having chosen a text for treatment, remove its nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Replace the nons with those taken in order from a different work, the verbs with those from a second work, the adjectives with those from a third.



    Source: Mathews, Harry & Brotchie, Alastair (eds.) (1998 & 2005). Oulipo Compendium. London: Atlas Press.