Game #2 - Oulipo Constraints

I am so pleased with the results of the first game! Everyone's poems are absolutely wonderful, with a great mix of emotional depth and clarity. Because this was so well done, I'm going to move in a completely different direction.

One of the things I loved learning about in Creative Non-fiction was Oulipo, or "Ouvroir de littérature potentielle," which translates roughly as "workshop of potential literature." Because their mission is to seek new structures and patterns (or constraints) which may be used by writers in any way they enjoy, I thought it would also fit well into our mission of Poetry Month.

I chose two constraints that are specifically used for poetry. Feel free to do both of them if you like.

The first method is called the N + 7 Method. For this method, you would take one of the poems you have already written and replace every noun in it with a noun you find seven entries later in the dictionary. (If you don't like the number 7, you can choose a different number, just keep it the same for every noun).

The second method is called the Snowball Method (at least on the English Wikipedia page). For this method, you write a poem where each line is a single word with each subsequent line one letter longer than the one preceding it.

I don't know if these poems will be as great as the cut-up method poems, but they are sure to be interesting.

If you want a reference page for Oulipo, check out the wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oulipo) which also has links to more in-depth sites.

Happy writing!