Nick brought this to my attention this morning. Canadian Poet Christian Bok wrote a book titled Eunoia, with each chapter only utilizing 1 vowel. It took him 7 years. Here's my favorite extract:From Chapter E:
Westerners revere the Greek legends. Versemen retell the represented events, the resplendent scenes, where, hellbent, the Greek freemen seek revenge whenever Helen, the new-wed empress, weeps. Restless, she deserts her fleece bed where, detested, her wedded regent sleeps. When she remembers Greece, her seceded demesne, she feels wretched, left here, bereft, her needs never met. She needs rest; nevertheless, her demented fevers render her sleepless (her sleeplessness enfeebles her). She needs help; nevertheless her stressed nerves render her cheerless (her cheerlessness enfetters her).
This reminds me of:
And also of Oulipo, a group of French writers and mathematicians. They write books and poetry while exercising various writing restraints, just like Christian Bok. The group was founded in 1960 and the name is pulled from the beginning letters of each word: "Ouvroir de Litterature Potential" which means workshop of potential literature.
A fascinating work from Oulipo is one in which sonnets are cut into strips on each page, so that the reader can turn each strip independently and combine sonnets in whichever way they want. It would take approximately 200 million years to read all possible combinations.
Here are some constraints that were tried (taken from Wikipedia)
- S+7, sometimes called N+7
- Replace every noun in a text with the noun seven entries after it in a dictionary. For example, "Call me Ishmael. Some years ago..." (from Moby-Dick) becomes "Call me islander. Some yeggs ago...". Results will vary depending upon the dictionary used. This technique can also be performed on other lexical classes, such as verbs.
- Snowball
- A poem in which each line is a single word, and each successive word is one letter longer.
- Lipogram
- Writing that excludes one or more letters. The previous sentence is a lipogram in B, F, H, J, K, Q, V, Y, and Z (it does not contain any of those letters).
- Prisoner's constraint, also called "Macao" constraint
- A type of lipogram that omits letters with ascenders and descenders (b, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, p, q, t, and y).
- Palindromes
- Sonnets and other poems constructed using palindromic techniques.
- Univocalism
- A poem using only one vowel, although the vowel may be used in any of its aural forms. For example, "bone" and "cot" could both be used in a univocalism, unlike "sew" or "beau".
This makes me wonder, the idea of constraints is so fascinating. Is it a natural impulse? Our society these days is all about self constraint, be it expression of our true desires (sexual, violent, what have you), our consumption (we watch what we eat, we watch what we spend our money on), our schedules (we're constrained to certain hours in the day when we can do things, also by the work schedule of 9-5), but etiquette and norms, by constructs, by laws. Everything imposed in our society and everything we abide by is a constraint. Is there true expression anymore? It's all about "self control" now. "Self control" is a big component in becoming successful nowadays. "Self control" is so frustrating. It's like being trained like a dog, it's like we not only domesticate animals, but we domesticate ourselves. We have certain impulses for a reason, a biological reason, but in our society it's taboo to express them. We have to undercut our egos in order to be economically viable and "happy".
As Anne Frank said:
We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.
some people just equate happiness with success, which is tied always with a financial component. The happiest people are those who don't have desires, in my opinion, but those people are shunned by society and people project onto them, thinking they couldn't possibly be happy without material wealth. We've been trained to think this, for the sake of our economy! What is truth, what is just a belief? Why do some beliefs feel so true?
I have a feeling it's not natural, but obviously everything unnatural these days spurs from something natural, because we, as natural beings, created all artifice. But then one could make the argument that these all came from the conscious mind, which in fact, is not natural, because no other species has it.
My mind is wannnnndering today. Surprisingly not hung over, because last night at 3am I got up and guzzled two glasses of water.
in other news, I am completely commando today under my jumper. It's laundry day, that's why.
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