Dedication

DEDICATION

To RKS
you were my first
you could have been my last
you are my lost

And to YHWH
You are my first
You are my last
I'm no longer lost
Isaiah 61:1-3
"...beauty for ashes..."

- Mildred Achoch, 4th September, 2011

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A big thank you to David Citino and his amazing, inspirational book "Paperwork", for reminding me that poems - and poets - are worth something.

Many thanks to my namesake "Mimi" Mik for taking the time to read my crazy poems, and for giving me her invaluable feedback. You rock!

Asante sana to Murfy's Flaw for being one of the coolest and 'down-to-earthest' Kenyan rock bands! And for allowing their awesome song "In Silence" to be part of the soundtrack of this book of poems.

I salute the prolific poet Phatalvision for reading ALL my poems! By the way sir, "old school" is "gold 'n' cool" :-)

I am very thankful to my mum, dad and sister, for putting up with me all these years. I love you!

Friday, April 11, 2014

OULIPOST #11: Get your marry card!

Every day this April, nearly 80 poets will write one poem per day by applying constrained writing techniques sourced from the Oulipo (Ouvroir de littérature potentielle — or “workshop of potential literature”) group to text sourced from their daily local newspaper. This is the eleventh of thirty prompts in the Oulipost project.

The found poem below is in response to this prompt:

OULIPOST #11: Univocalism

A univocalic text is one written with a single vowel. It is consequently a lipogram in all the other vowels. If he had been univocally minded, Hamlet might have exclaimed. "Be? Never be? Perplexed quest: seek the secret!" All words used must be sourced from your newspaper.

a
marry card!
pay $1000 (sh 86,000)
and $1500 (sh 129,000),
bank a grand Amrcan man,

e
scheme between key green September December men [then]

i
visit utility bills in

o
honymoon of

u
August jury.

 REFERENCES

 Mureithi, BMJ. "US jails Kenyan for marriage fraud." The Daily Nation. 11 Apr. 2014: pg 9.
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5 comments:

  1. AnonymousApril 11, 2014 at 1:53 AM

    Wow. We both wrote about marriage, and within half an hour of each other! I swear, we're all synching up... :-) I love this poem, and your clever use of erasure!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. kenyarockfilmfestivaljournalApril 11, 2014 at 2:26 AM

      Thanks jodyrich! And I love your marriage poem too! I highly recommend it everyone http://jodyrich.wordpress.com/2014/04/11/oulipost-11-univocalism/

      Delete
  2. BobApril 11, 2014 at 2:04 AM

    Hi, Mildred.

    Great idea to go through all the vowels. If my wife lets me have any more computer time today, I'll try the same!

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousApril 11, 2014 at 10:49 AM

    I'm glad you chose this structure. I considered it and then the poem went its own way. This way I can see it working!

    ReplyDelete

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