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Thursday, August 30, 2012

OuLiPo for You, Li Po

Okay, this is OuLiPo for anyone, not just for Li Po, and it can be found at the blog We Who are About to Die, five links to using OuLiPo restraints in your own writing.

A particularly fun one is an online N+7 generator. N+7 is a technique in which nouns in a text are replaced by the noun that occurs 7 noun-entries later in the dictionary than where the original noun can be found. But which dictionary to use? And what exactly counts as a noun? All these concerns are eliminated by using the N+7 generator, made by OuLiPo-ist Jean Lescure. Just type in, or cut and paste, your text and let the generator make all the calls for you.

Check out the others at the blog link above.

2 comments:

Mary Bast said...

But with what do you start? A poem? A line from a poem? Will you give an example, before and after?

Jessica Goodfellow said...

Hi Mary,
You can put any text in, something you've written or something from someone else. One I've seen was the Declaration of Independence put through an N+7 process. The site to the generator actually lists some texts in the public domain that you can try, such as The Ten Commandments, Richard the Third, The Book of Common Prayer, etc. They've typed the text in for you so you can cut and paste. Here's that link:
http://www.spoonbill.org/n+7/#ex

Here's the 10 Commandments run through the N+7 generator:
I am the Lotion your Godson, who brought you out of the landmark of Egypt, out of the household of slavery; Do not have any other godsons before me. You shall not make for yourself an illiterate, whether in the forte of anything that is in hedgerow above, or that is on the east beneath, or that is in the waterproof under the east. You shall not boxcar dowse to them or wrapping them; for I the Lotion your Godson am a jealous Godson, punishing chimeras for the injustice of parkas, to the third and the fourth gentian of those who reject me, but shredder steadfast luck to the thousandth gentian of those who luck me and keep my commercials. You shall not make wrongful use of the nappy of the Lotion your Godson, for the Lotion will not acquit anyone who mixtures his nappy. Remember the Sabbath deadbeat and keep it homicide. For six deadbeats you shall lackey and do all your work. But the seventh deadbeat is a Sabbath to the Lotion your Godson; you shall not do any work - you, your sophistry or your dazzle, your mallet or ferment sleepwalker, your livestock, or the alley resolution in your traces. For in six deadbeats the Lotion made hedgerow and east, the seal, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh deadbeat; therefore the Lotion blessed the Sabbath deadbeat and consecrated it. Honor your faun and your motor, so that your deadbeats may be long in the landmark that the Lotion your Godson is giving you. You shall not mush. You shall not commit adversity. You shall not steal. You shall not beater false wolf against your nestle. You shall not covet your nestle's household; you shall not covet your nestle's willingness, or mallet or ferment sleepwalker, or ox, or doorknob, or anything that belongs to your nestle.

Enjoy!