My First Workshop

OK, I've been to poetry workshops, but that was the first time I'd run one - co-hosting with Ben Lawrence (poet, friend, beard, quidditch champion) on the theme of Oulipo. If you don't know what Oulipo is, it's a contraction of Ouvroir de littérature potentielle which roughly translates as "workshop of potential literature" (so, technically this was a workshop-workshop meta-thingie) where writing constraints are used to inspire new writing. Founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais, it started as was a loose gathering of (mainly) French-speaking writers and mathematicians who sought to create written works using various constraining techniques. So, think univocalism (only allowing yourself to use one of the vowels) and that kind of thing, often in cool Parisian coffee-houses- highly appropriate as the workshop took place in an independent cafe-gallery albiet in Southampton.

We worked though a variety of tasks and prompts, one of which was to create a snowball poem. This means starting with a single letter as the first line, two letters in line two and so on. You go as far as you want, then, if you wish, back down again to end with a single-letter as the last line. In a spirit of camaraderie, me and Ben did the exercises too. Here's my snowball output:


Snowball Earth

I
am
the
last
human
on this
fateful
dying orb,
sun-fusion
sucked away
to power – what?
Great engines,
gravitational
arrays that open
spacetime rips to
nowhere, a pure void
vampiric upon solar
energy, and we couldn’t
close it, so our giant
companion star got
cooler and cooler
‘til candle-faint,
a lonely cinder
lost in vacuum
without fuel,
so Earth now
chills and
darkens, a
funeral
for all
of our
kind
and
so
I…

Well, I got all dystopian and bleak there, but you see how it works... If you like constrained writing you can set yourself whatever rules you wish as long as you enter into the spirit of Oulipo and stick to them rigorously. A great book containing numerous examples is Adventures in Form, and you might like to check out Ross Sutherland's univocalist and N+ (more about that later) works, as well as the famous Eunoia by Christian Bok.'Til then, here's an image of poets attempting Oulipo-ness...

Three little letters

The BNP still exist, just. They need to be opposed, trounced and mocked wherever they try to go. In this case, via an oulipo-ish poem working on their own abbreviation...

B.N.P.

Bullies never prosper,
bankrupt Nick - perhaps
bigotry’s not paying,
breeding no profits,
Billy-no-pals’
bad-news peddlers
bringing nothing, pathetic
bloody Nazis parading,
barely nineteen participants,
bullies not ‘patriots’,
bull-necked plonkers
blaming non-whites, Poles;
blokes needing Playtex,
bloated numpties pulling
burqas, needling people,
browning nylon pants
because nearby person’s
black; now pitiful
boneheads nervously piss
britches, noticing plenty
Britons not pleased
by negro-phobes
belching neurotic policies,
beyond ‘not particularly
bright’, nearer Protozoa,
banjo notes playing –
best no platform,
block nationalist prats
barricaded, no – pigpenned,
broken noses perhaps.

Nod to 'Two Moons for Mongs'

Last night at The Art House, I saw Ross Sutherland perform a splendid set which included one of my favourites of his, Two Moons for Mongs which was (a) wonderful and (b) made me glad I didn't pick a univocalist poem during the open mic section (I was going to but then I wondered, 'what if...?' and did something else instead). Anyhow, I wrote this a few months ago as a response to Two Moons..., also as a univocalist piece in the key of O (the only vowel used). Now seems the right time to let it be read. Some day I may perform it...

Hollowtown

Long rows of blocks soon show
Tomorrow’s World looks old now,
bros roll pot, stroll,
stow stocks of loft-grown blow,
bohos on ‘shrooms,
top dogs snort snow,
‘hood-brood yobs cook hot spoons –
brown smog, not gold,
(soon off box)
two OD, go cold-doggo,
poor dodos,
boohoo moods bloom.

SOCO door-knock,
sort rooms of dross,
non-PC PCs stop wogs, coons,
low-down cops
nod ‘Dobro’ to Moscow mob-lords,
boot-shod boors who
boss pros to go down for no dosh –
now cops got pox, STDs, cock-rot,
hos ROFL,
tho’ crows not storks
for Coco, Lolo –
most snot-snook sprogs who’d yowl
torn from womb so not born –
poco tombs.

Poolroom folk go ‘tock, tock, tock,
pot browns
B-boys drop mojo,
Shlomo b-box vox, b’boom-boom,
cool Moloko,
Floyd’s LSD woo,
not rock’n’roll, Toto or Bono (knob),
or too-smooth bollocks-R’n’B pop-songs
not known
to old crooks who got form,
lots of Lotto sorrow,
sob,
lost so rob loot,
worst combo.

Yoofs mooch,
gob-lob ‘sod off, mofo’
(no bon-môts)
to oppos –
post-work droogs,
cogs of dotcom toffs who pop corks
to corps-logos (wrong gods)
storm to BOGOFs on alcohol
from lo-cost shops –
hobos go loco on grog,
posh sots down rococo plonk,
borrow vs stock
for Goodwood loss (vow to stop),
blotto clowns throw rocks
to crock front of motor showrooms,
hot-foot off,
soon toros lock horns,
bozo-kwon-do, chop-sock, boff!
tosspots' bloodsport,
tomoz, novo-pro-codo-mol.

Dorks (oft Frodo-short)
shoot X-Box Doom
or solo to porn –
Cor! Norks!
Swots post tosh on blogs,
sort Roblox,
words blossom on rooftops – pshht –
‘Robbo 4 Koo’
‘Morons rool OK’
‘Wot no shoggoths?’
Fox scoffs lost food,
popcorn,
pork blobs con pollo – nom nom nom,
dogs growl, woof, drool – shoo,
owls hoot, wolf howls, cows moo
on CBBC ‘cos town holds
no woods or moors.

Tom, Jock – two homos who got horn
smooch, snog, blow x x x,
Jock drops L-bomb shock,
slo-mo romcom.
Fools follow bonobo-bottoms,
ro-ro molls,
hook-worm dolls
from Mondo Go-go
O2 photo-ops,
OMG Botox botch-jobs,
schlock-horrorshow.

CCTV looks down on Hollowtown,
moon too
glows SOS,
dot dot dot.

Ross Sutherland performing Two Moons for Mongs

I tri to univocalise

ibid.

Bring crisps, chips, drinks in tins,
fight-night is nigh,
fit fists hitting chins, TV-bright –
Biff!
Spit split lip-bits, pink, thick.

I sit with misgivings,
sipping citric gin,
wishing it’d finish – tick tick tick,
minim-clicks.
I’m missing BBC’s rib-tickling skits,
sci-fi films, British fright-flicks.

Living with dimwits is shit,
six chimps igniting spliffs,
yipping, big-dicking,
swilling Pils (bits spill),
pissing Klimt-lit drips
(in mind: shivs, picks, flinging bricks).

‘Ring-ring, ring-ring.’
‘Hi’ – it’s Irish Jim with skins, trips,
limping,
flicking blim,
iThing whistling Limp Bizkit.
Inviting him in, civil-ish,
I skip-zip lightning-quick,
quitting this tip right-swift, midnight flit.

Kip in Tim’s Civic? Fritz’s Mini?
Siri’s ringing – it’s Jim, livid,
Tirpitz sinking in villi.
Dicing with risk, inciting plight - think,
climb in big bin,
flip lid,
piri-piri whiff,
filing piling high –
shitting it, chill-pills kick in,
silent, I rigid-digit Jim.

First thing, switch limits:
Hiding in hills?
Ritz?
Mississippi tipi?
Flight it is.
Sigh.