Over at Hyacinth Girls, the two eponymous heroines have been engaged in a project of posting poems based on various Oulipian procedures.
This is admirable in several ways:
1. Procedures whether traditional (sonnet, ghazal, sestina) or Oulipian are only alive if we keep them alive. It’s the difference between knowing that Paleolithic men and women knew how to make varied and effective cutting tools out of flint, and actually using those same techniques yourself. The former is an interesting historical fact. The latter is a living embodiment of archaic technology, and hence, knowledge, skill and body.
2. By engaging these procedures, you learn about the inherent energy in them, about writing itself and about your own poetic footprint. You might think that the more automatic the procedure, the less there is to learn, but not so. Take one of the more well known oulipian processes, N+7. A description of this might be the simple mechanical substitution of each noun in an existing poem with the noun found 7 places away from the original in the dictionary. No wriggle room? But what dictionary do you use? Also, there are decisions such as: if the poem is metrical do you use the seventh metrically equivalent noun (Sonnet 73: "That tin of yeast thou mayest in me behold')? Do you count multiple entries of nouns in the dictionary? This might not amount to very much personal discretion, yet there it is.
3. Further, even the most unchancy procedure will tell you something about the language you are writing in, and about your source text (if any). What might interesting here is what and how much of what the original poem is made of remains. This depends on what you do to it.
4. It imparts the lessons of patience and perseverance.
5. The results may goad or spark you into a procedureless poem of your own.
6. And, of course the results can be fabulous.
I had a conversation more than few years ago with a friend about how certain segments of 
the neo-formalists and l=a=n=g=u=a=g=e-influenced proceduralists had, at least, overlapping concerns with the formal aspects of poetry.
Also, I'd like to see more examples of combinatory procedures using both traditional and oulipian. Example: Nestina, a sestina where the 6 end words are advanced N+7 for each stanza, with the last 3 line stanza returning to the original 6.
And yesterday of course was the day that celebrates one the great trobar clus works of the last century--Ulysses.
Total clarity is probably not a laudable quality in poetry – Frank M. Chambers
To explore further, see:
Peire d’Alvernhe
Giraut de Bornelh
Raimbaut d'Aurenga
Marcabru
Sonnet 73*
The lukewarm taboo insults me when
hostage joints, or prayers, or sights, deprive
bellies that gorge against their quilts. The palm
of the hand is vicious where cheating baskets
distress the heat of certain animals in copulation.
You bray the return of pawnshops after your thrust
lengthens its cry of pain, which milky soap digs up,
and smoke's snail delays by a span of nine inches.
You bray the wheezing of truth this wound’s parcel
laps up, as steaming eclipses it, just as laws
related to the keeping of dogs are customary.
You contemptible person, staining ledges huge
with overbearing behavior, that ledge of a cliff
that you set in mortar like the setting of a jewel.
*homophonic translation into Irish and then dictionary translation back into English (thanks to Nigel Hinshelwood).
Skúlason was at Bobby Fischer’s bedside when he muttered his final words and passed away: “Nothing eases suffering like human touch.”
I am behind in reading! And I haven't had coffee yet, so I will have to come back and make other comments! But WOW -- I shall speak for both of The Hyacinth Girls and say that we're honored!
You've brought up some very, very interesting points. I cannot wait to come back when I am caffeinated and not multitasking at the office! Also: I'm loving that you mentioned Ulysses, because the Teapot Conversation in "Circe" is something I've though about quite often this month when trying to choose an Oulipo constraint for any given day.
I love Ulysses. Sigh.
Posted by: Zelda | Jun 19, 2008 at 09:59 AM