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"Poetry is the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash." Leonard Cohen

Friday, April 4, 2014

Oulipost Day 4 the Fibonacci

*
       An An An slicked in

         The  The   The   man   fell   syringe    another

            devil       devil         devil     yelling

              head
              only
                  
                I or nurse from the difficult the

                devil devil head   life  pathology

                devil        devil         devil
                       
                  someone          it  

                  heard     him     cooking

                         hepatitis

                        poor

                       *artwork: hans.wyrdweb

Source material: Edmonton Journal - on-line version April 4, 2014 - using the whole of the first article in the first section, and thanks to the wonderful machine devised by one of the other Oulipolians, Douglas J. Luman, sussed my Fibonacci. The article was the lead and was entitled:

"An 'unspeakable devil' was yelling, says woman who laid oil and syringe trap for her husband"

Instructions for writing the poem:FIBONACCI (VARIATION)
In a Fibonacci sequence, each term is the sum of the two terms
immediately preceding it; typically with 1 as the first term: 1, 1, 2,
3, 5,8, 13, 21, 34, 55 and so on.

[Select an article from your newspaper and create a poem using
the words that correspond with the numbers in the sequence.
Your poem will take the form of first word, first word, second word,
third word, fifth word, eighth word, thirteenth word, etc. You can
continue until you’ve run out of words in your article or until
you’re happy with the poem’s conclusion.]

Side Note: I'm not sure anyone's ever totally happy with their Fibonacci, especially those created under more constraints than the math itself, but, I have to admit - it was an interesting challenge...








5 comments:

  1. This is amazing! I have to wonder about the mental health of the writer of the article, if they used the word "devil" with such frequency that it hit all the Fib numbers, but it worked out amazingly for your poem..

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  2. I think this is my favorite so far of the Oulipost Fib poems. The repetition really carries the sense of mad desperation that may have been at the heart of that news story.

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  3. Nice spiral downward...in words, and the layout of your words. That must have been an interesting article!

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  4. The "devil" was used again and again by the defendant, the prosecutor, and the judge, as well as the reporter so it was a pretty good bet that it would be the word that popped up as often as an article (definite or indefinite) throughout...I trusted Doug's machine to do the math especially because it was a lengthy article; the people involved did seem more than a little "disturbed" for sure.

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  5. Boy, this is great! And I like the way the poem spirals on the page.

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