I have a poem inside this month’s edition of Ekleksographia, along with new conceptual writing from Christian Bok, Harry Matthews and Ian Monk. There’s also a series of visual sonnets by artist David Miller (see above). My poem is a ‘univocalism’: a form of poetry invented by the OULIPO, where the author is only allowed [...]]]>

I have a poem inside this month’s edition of Ekleksographia, along with new conceptual writing from Christian Bok, Harry Matthews and Ian Monk. There’s also a series of visual sonnets by artist David Miller (see above). My poem is a ‘univocalism’: a form of poetry invented by the OULIPO, where the author is only allowed to use one vowel. Anyone who saw the show Found In Translation will have basically seen an earlier version of this piece.

I was fortunate enough to do a reading with Ian Monk a few years ago at an OULIPO event in Waterloo. He was kind about my univocalism (although it uses ‘Y’, so isn’t technically a one-vowel poem… thanks to everyone who pointed that out) and the night ended with a bunch of us drunkenly pointing out all the univocalisms on the London tube map. We got so carried away that I nearly missed my connection home. I think there’s a horrible metaphor about my writing / my life hidden in there, and I think its probably best if I just ignore it altogether.

Read the full edition of the magazine here.

On the subject of Christian Bok, I found an interesting Q&A with him from a few years ago, where Bok chats about craft and discipline in poetry, and how, in general, “poets are the laziest, stupidest people I know.” You can hear the whole thing here.

And if you find that you don’t agree with the man, just remind yourself of me, head pressed against the wall,  slurring “Chalk Farm…Woodford…Debden…” as the last train rolls off into the distance.

I make a brief appearance in a documentary on Radio 4 this week, along with my regular collaborators Tim Clare and Joe Dunthorne.

Writer and typographer Ben Schott was investigating the French experimental literary group the Oulipo. Seeing as we wrote a show about the Oulipo earlier this year, Ben decided to meet up with us [...]]]>

I make a brief appearance in a documentary on Radio 4 this week, along with my regular collaborators Tim Clare and Joe Dunthorne.

Writer and typographer Ben Schott was investigating the French experimental literary group the Oulipo. Seeing as we wrote a show about the Oulipo earlier this year, Ben decided to meet up with us and ask us about the Oulipo’s appeal across the channel.

The full doc features interviews with Oulipo president Paul Fournel, member Harry Matthews, and author Christan Bok, amongst others. It was Podcast of the Week, which means you can download it through iTunes for the next few days. I’ve also uploaded it to this website:

R4Choice_ Oulipo 20 Nov 09 (Part 1)

R4Choice_ Oulipo 20 Nov 09 (Part 2)

The Oulipo are a mixture of mathematicians and writers, founded in the 1960s, primarily interested in the development of new modes of literature. In the tradition of the sonnet or the haiku before them, the Oulipo develop new writing constraints to challenge the creative process. The less freedom we have, the more inventive we become.

I think Oulipo might have begun as a loosely anti-Surrealist movement. You have these Surrealists saying “aha, I have painted a hat bigger than a man! Thus I have broken through my normative bourgeois mindset and uncovered my subconscious desires!”

To which the Oulipian response would probably be “no, you are not free. You’re just obeying rules that you don’t understand.” Ie, better to foreground the rules and excel within them, rather then pretend that they don’t exist.

That’s my take on it anyway. The first Oulipian technique I attempted was a writing style known as univocalism, which is the production of a text that only contains one vowel.

I chose the vowel of O. The process was torturous- I spent days working on the poem without having any idea what it was about at all. After a couple of days, the Rorschach blot eventually began to resemble something. I realised that I had unconsciously chosen to tell a story from my childhood: the story of a young boy that gets so stoned in public that he can’t find his way home again.

I think that I might of unwittingly chosen this particular story because it mirrors the state of mind that is produced by working within Oulipian constraint. It’s my own personal metaphor for the process of writing univocally: the feeling of being lost in a familiar place (and, er, well blunted.)

Two Moons For Mongs

Frosty mongs bosh shots of scotch on London’s onyx commons, rock-off to soppy mono toss; lost songs of London: Town of Bop. No motor. No lolly. No job to mock. From tons of pot down to Jon’s bong only (too strong for Tony, only Tony don’t know so).

Gordon’s cold brown cosh of old hotdog now looks so good. Tony scoffs lot; sods off to look for Polos.

Johnny shows Gordon how to body-pop: slow Robocop foxtrot to Bobby Brown.

Scot robs Holly’s shock blowjob story; lots of ho ho ho follows.

Two o’clock: Tony growls bon mot bollocks from London’s soft throng of woods; lost moth for God’s two moons. Poor Tony looks down, drops Pollock on both boots.

On plots so holy, old dogs poo boldly. Goons do loops of blocks, too cold for words.

Gordy pops bon bons. Jon spots Bono.

Both gobs go ‘O’.

Our show about the Oulipo, Found in Translation is planned for a follow-up tour in 2010.