Introduction

A technique mentioned in the Oulipo Compendium is “acronymic poetry”:

This sounded interesting, so I thought I’d experiment with it – without the poetry aspect.

The word I decided on, for no particular reason except that none of the letters in it are repeated, was “seminal”. Here’s what I came up with:

Seminal

• Seeing everyone may involve not allowing levity.

• Sort everything! Make it nice and lean.

• Surprised? Expect more involvement now. A lot.

Discussion

On the face of it, this exercise seems completely pointless. However, I found it very interesting.

Firstly, I wanted the sentences I created to make sense, even if the context wasn’t clear. This is more difficult than simply coming up with a load of random words.

Secondly, and arising out of that first point, it stretched my writing muscles. That has to be a good thing.

Thirdly, and arising out of the second point, it made me think of an different word to use instead of “tidy”. Admittedly, “lean” does not immediately strike one as a synonym of “tidy”, but quite clearly it can be. For instance, in my periodic tidying up of the mess obscuring my desk, I invariably throw out old notes and pens that no longer worked (or perhaps never worked), thereby making the pile of stuff much leaner in the process.

Fourthly and finally, it enabled me to come up with a few sentences that, were I a fiction writer, I’m pretty certain I could develop into something useful. Thus this little exercise has lived up to the name of the Oulipo, which is a workshop of potential literature.