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
eighteenth of thirty prompts in the Oulipost project.
The poem below is in response to the following prompt:
OULIPOST#19: Sestina
This will be one of your most challenging Oulipost prompts! A sestina is
a poetic form of six six-line stanzas. The end-words of the lines of
each stanza repeat those of the first, but in a differing order that in
each successive stanza follows the permutation: 615243. The entire
sequence of end words is thus: 123456; 615243; 364125; 532614; 451362;
246531. All words and phrases must be sourced from your newspaper text.
Police on skates will soon be rolling after
The Bishop with the fifty-bob legacy.
Your sugar addiction is more than just
where and how to reap big from your harvest.
Should women be given a leg up
from slimming tea to body wraps?
From slimming tea to body wraps,
police on skates will soon be rolling after
women given a leg up
and the Bishop with the fifty-bob legacy.
Where and how to reap big from your harvest?
Your sugar addiction is more than just.
Your sugar addiction is more than just
slimming tea and body wraps
and where, how to reap big from your harvest.
Police on skates will soon be rolling after
The Bishop with the fifty-bob legacy.
Should women be given a leg up?
Should women be given a leg up
your sugar addiction? More than just
the Bishop with the fifty-bob legacy
of slimming tea, body wraps?
Police on skates will soon be rolling after
your harvest.
Where and how to reap big from your harvest
of women given a leg up?
Police on skates will soon be rolling after
your sugar addiction. Just
a body wraps
The Bishop with the fifty-bob legacy.
The Bishop with the fifty-bob legacy
knows where and how to reap big from your harvest.
From slimming teas to body wraps,
women should be given a leg up.
Your sugar addiction is more than just
Police on skates rolling after.
REFERENCES
Various newspaper headlines from the Saturday Nation, 19 April 2014.
My God! You pantoumed the sestina. Did that make the sestina easier?
ReplyDeleteIt made me work faster since i had less words to work with :-)
DeleteNow THAT was a clever idea. It's amazing how we are already under both found and Oulipo constraints, and yet we add more levels. Gluttons for postery, I guess!
ReplyDelete