Oulipo and other outside-the-box approaches to writing

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!

N + 7 Machine 

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.

Any bold, clever, daring explorer faces great hurdles, including jealous kings, lying mariners, native occupants, pusillanimous queens, really sneaky tyrants, usually vying with xenophobic young zealots.

A boisterous clown does every foolish game: hurling icicles, juggling kaleidoscopes, laughing maniacally, neglecting old pants, quickly revealing sparkling tight underwear, vamping while x-raying your zebra.

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.