Oulipo
My writing-related filing cabinets, by Terry Freedman
I think evaluations are very odd devices to be honest. Someone once “marked me down” on her evaluation of a one day course I was running on the grounds that the traffic was terrible.
Read MoreIn London on June 8th I’ll be teaching a course called Creative Writing Using Constraints, an introduction to the world of the Oulipo. This is a round-up of some of the books I’ll be referring to and talking about.
Read MoreThis course will look at examples of constraints created by some of the Oulipo’s main proponents, with work including the Hundred Thousand Billion Sonnets, the Metro Poem, and others. Course participants will have the opportunity to try out several techniques, and invent one or two of their own.
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Labyrinth
by Ideogram
In Escapism: a 50 word prose poem I presented readers with a prose poem constructed in accordance with a constraint, and invited them to suggest what that constraint might be. Here’s the poem again, followed by the solution.
Read MoreThe following story has been written in accordance with a constraint, in true Oulipian style. The Oulipo is a writing movement based on constraints, such as omitting the use of a particular letter when composing a text.
Read MoreIf your interest in the Oulipo goes beyond simply trying out their techniques, and you wish to learn about the context in which it was conceived and the developments in went through, you will find this book very useful.
Read MoreI have a course coming up, one that I’m teaching. I asked an AI writer to draft a press release for it. Here’s what it came up with, with my annotations in italics and in square brackets.
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Many people advocate free writing as a way of cutting through writer’s block. Well, it’s never worked for me, and it doesn’t seem logical anyway. If you can’t think of anything to write, how would allowing your mind to just generate stuff do any good?
Read MoreOn the surface, this would seem to be nothing more or less than an example of performance art presented as literature. However, there is much more to it than that because Johnson has introduced elements of randomisation…
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Picture by Dall-e
Poetry lovers will recall the impact Slake' s first book made. "Tied up in Notts" was, at the time, not merely avant-garde but positively risque. The reason, of course, was Slake's cavalier approach to poetic conventions. For example, his 15 Line Sonnet caused a massive rift in the arts community.
Read MoreOulipo techniques are great for dispelling writer’s block, and generating new works.
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Three reviews in one article, plus a couple of news announcements.
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Image created by Dall-E for Terry Freedman
This post is a puzzle for you, and an experiment for me.
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Rainham Marshes, by Terry Freedman
Can you spot the hidden theme word?
Read MoreBerkman has written an interesting and very academic examination of the links between maths and literature.
Read MoreThe Oulipo is a writing movement that uses constraints to produce ‘potential literature’.
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Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
This course is running tomorrow (18 June 2022), and I’ve added a few more exercises for people to try out.
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On 17 June 2021 I wrote a round-up of my reviews of books about the Oulipo. Here’s a link to that article.
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Squared notebook, by Terry Freedman
If, like me, you enjoy writing for the sake of it, and maybe even enjoy a secret life as a short story or novel writer, this might interest you.
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