1. N + 7 Generator
Take piece of poetry or prose, substitute the nouns for the seventh noun that comes after that noun in the dictionary.
The Red Wheelbarrow
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
Enter it into the N + 7 generator and the result is:
The Red Whelp
so much depends
upon
a red whelk
basilica
glazed with raisin
waterproof
beside the white
childhoods.
Try it with a verse or two from this famous NZ poem:
Rain
I can hear you
making small holes
in the silence
rain
If I were deaf
the pores of my skin
would open to you
and shut
And I
should know you
by the lick of you
if I were blind
the something
special smell of you
when the sun cakes
the ground
the steady
drum-roll sound
you make
when the wind drops
But if I
should not hear
smell or feel or see
you
you would still
define me
disperse me
wash over me
rain
There's even an N + 7 machine in the web!
Type in a simple text of your own, then press submit. See what you get!
2. Snowball
I
am
the
text
which
begins
sparely,
assuming
magnitude
constantly,
perceptibly
proportional,
incorporating
unquestionable
incrementations.
Try it yourself.
3. Lipogram
A lipogram is a text composed deliberately without a particular letter, such as the letter 't'.
Excerpt from Gadsby, by Earnest Vincent Wright
"Now, any author, from history's dawn, always had that most important aid to writing:—an ability to call upon any word in his dictionary in building up his story. That is, our strict laws as to word construction did not block his path. But in my story that mighty obstruction will constantly stand in my path; for many an important, common word I cannot adopt, owing to its orthography."
Which letter is missing?
Here are some notes from my travel diaries 20 years ago!
On the promenade at sunrise
Sun emerges dying everything apricot. Old-timers congregate. Small boats lay out nets. Crows and beggars try their luck. The sea impossibly smooth. Enormous dead rat having its guts pecked by crows. A dog yawns in the sun.
On the promenade at midnight
Children frolicking around the feet of the MG Monument. Twinkling lights of far-off fishing boats.
India’s filthiest restaurant
One waiter coughing incessantly over the customers while a cross-eyed youth continuously bumped into tables. Up on the hotel rooftop I watched the full moon struggle through the smog. Came back to the room to immaculately pressed laundry.
Try rewriting one of the excerpts without a crucial letter, such as 't', or 's'. It's really challenging and really interesting.
4. The abecedarian
These can be narrative
Alice wanted to go to the park
But knew she had to study for
Class. Still, her friend
Diana asked her to go, and she was
Eager to get some fresh air.
Or you could try to write sentences where the words occur in alphabetical order.
Artistically assembled, bagpipes blow, creating cacophony; drums deliver, echoes ensuing; flutes follow, generating gentleness; harmonicas help, in instances; jew’s-harps join, keeping kosher; lutes lightly make music noteworthy; now, oboes outclassed, piccolos peep quite quickly; rebecs reply so softly; the tuba, used untiringly, varies vastly while, with xyloid xylophones, yammers ye zesty zither.
5. Eunoia
Eunoia is a book by Christian Bök
There are 5 sections based on the vowels A, E, I, O, and U
from Chapter A
(for Hans Arp)
Awkward grammar appals a craftsman. A Dada bard
as daft as Tzara damns stagnant art and scrawls an
alpha (a slapdash arc and a backward zag) that mars
all stanzas and jams all ballads (what a scandal). A
madcap vandal crafts a small black ankh – a hand-
stamp that can stamp a wax pad and at last plant a
mark that sparks an ars magna (an abstract art that
charts a phrasal anagram). A pagan skald chants a dark
saga (a Mahabharata), as a papal cabal blackballs all
annals and tracts, all dramas and psalms: Kant and
Kafka, Marx and Marat. A law as harsh as a fatwa bans
all paragraphs that lack an A as a standard hallmark.
from Chapter E
(for René Crevel)
Enfettered, these sentences repress free speech. The
text deletes selected letters. We see the revered exegete
reject metred verse: the sestet, the tercet – even les
scènes élevées en grec. He rebels. He sets new precedents.
He lets cleverness exceed decent levels. He eschews the
esteemed genres, the expected themes – even les belles
lettres en vers. He prefers the perverse French esthetes:
Verne, Péret, Genet, Perec – hence, he pens fervent
screeds, then enters the street, where he sells these let-
terpress newsletters, three cents per sheet. He engen-
ders perfect newness wherever we need fresh terms.
from Chapter I
(for Dick Higgins)
Writing is inhibiting. Sighing, I sit, scribbling in ink
this pidgin script. I sing with nihilistic witticism,
disciplining signs with trifling gimmicks – impish
hijinks which highlight stick sigils. Isn’t it glib?
Isn’t it chic? I fit childish insights within rigid limits,
writing shtick which might instill priggish misgiv-
ings in critics blind with hindsight. I dismiss nit-
picking criticism which flirts with philistinism. I
bitch; I kibitz – griping whilst criticizing dimwits,
sniping whilst indicting nitwits, dismissing simplis-
tic thinking, in which philippic wit is still illicit.
from Chapter O
(for Yoko Ono)
Loops on bold fonts now form lots of words for books.
Books form cocoons of comfort – tombs to hold book-
worms. Profs from Oxford show frosh who do post-
docs how to gloss works of Wordsworth. Dons who
work for proctors or provosts do not fob off school to
work on crosswords, nor do dons go off to dorm
rooms to loll on cots. Dons go crosstown to look for
bookshops known to stock lots of top-notch goods:
cookbooks, workbooks – room on room of how-to
books for jocks (how to jog, how to box), books on
pro sports: golf or polo. Old colophons on school-
books from schoolrooms sport two sorts of logo: ob-
long whorls, rococo scrolls – both on worn morocco.
from Chapter U
(for Zhu Yu)
Kultur spurns Ubu – thus Ubu pulls stunts. Ubu shuns
Skulptur: Uruk urns (plus busts), Zulu jugs (plus
tusks). Ubu sculpts junk für Kunst und Glück. Ubu
busks. Ubu drums drums, plus Ubu strums cruths
(such hubbub, such ruckus): thump, thump; thrum,
thrum. Ubu puns puns. Ubu blurts untruth: much
bunkum (plus bull), much humbug (plus bunk) – but
trustful schmucks trust such untruthful stuff; thus
Ubu (cult guru) must bluff dumbstruck numbskulls
(such chumps). Ubu mulcts surplus funds (trust
funds plus slush funds). Ubu usurps much usufruct.
Ubu sums up lump sums. Ubu trumps dumb luck.
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