I thought cutting up and then rearranging all the lines of the 100,000 billion Queneau sonnets sounded interesting, but way too much effort. So, naturally, I turned towards the internet, to see if someone else made a program to do the work for me. And lo, someone did! A few people, in fact.
Here are some of the different takes on how to present the Cent mille milliards de poemes on to the internet:
This one has a "random generator" script -- you press a button and a new version of the sonnets appears magically.
Another one also generates the poems for you, but lets you choose the number of the poem you want to create (You enter a random number between 1 and 100,000,000,000 and a corresponding poem appears.)
And finally, this one is by far the best, in my opinion, since it's more interactive than the other two and closer to the original idea of cutting, mixing and pasting. A grid appears next to a random sonnet, and you can click on different areas of the grid to have a certain line appear.
Then, I thought, interesting that I should automatically prefer the version of the poems which puts that element of human agency back into the mix -- the one that lets me still feel in some way that I'm still part "creator" of the poem. I can rearrange the lines to make the poem which I feel is most "literary."
What do you think about the two different versions of translating the Oulipo project onto the internet -- the random generator version, versus the pick-and-choose-which-lines version? Do they change the way you think about the project of the poems at all?
It also occured to me that this blog (maybe in comments to this entry?) could be a space for posting versions of the poems generated from the sites above which we are especially fond of. Is it fun to play around with these poems, or does it feel too limiting, despite the 100000000 different possibilities?
-Audre
Posted by aazuolas at September 23, 2003 06:02 PMHere's one I liked from the random generator:
He bent right down to pick up his valiseHere's one that is supposedly #56,745,399:
For tea cucumber sandwiches a scone
The turks said just take anything you please
And loudly sang off-key without a tone
And yet 'twas he the beggar Fate just flings
That metred rhyme alone can souls enslave
An icicle of frozen marrow pings
Till firemen come with hose-piped tidal wave
The genealogist with field and fess
And starve the sniveling baby like a dog
Watching manure and compost coalesce
No need to cart such treasures from the fog
Ventriloquists be blowed you strike me dumb
yet from the City's pie pulled not one plum
Don Pedro from his shirt has washed the fleasI think I agree with you, Audre, that the interactive version is the most fun -- except that I hate the translation. In fact, I hate it enough that I don't like any of the poems I made as much as the random ones above... Posted by: KF at September 23, 2003 08:31 PM | Permalink to Comment
The bull's horns ought to dry it like a bone
Old corned-beef's rusty armour spreads disease
That suede ferments is not at all well known
To one sweet hour of bliss my memory clings
Signalling gauchos very rarely shave
He's gone to London how the echo rings
In purest cradles tha's how they behave
Poetic licence needs no strain or stress
With gravity at gravity's great cog
Watching manure and compost coalesce
No need to cart such treasures from the fog
Poor reader smile before your lips go numb
The best of all things to an end must come
This desire for agency or control over the construction of Queneau's poems intrigues me. I also feel that the "pick-and-choose-which-lines" version is preferable, but why?
The ability to choose can be quite positive. Nevertheless, I think that there is something deceptive about the idea that such participation is drastically different from a traditional work of fiction. After all we are only ordering Queneau's lines, not determining the language. Although this may be too pessimistic a view, it feels as if the desire for agency is tied to a desire for mastery. In other words, if we are able to order the poem then we feel that this gives us greater control over the text. But this is not the case. After the ordering process is complete, we are still left with a text that is open to interpretation.
While I am not convinced that this poetic approach (or hypertext fiction) offers a unique choice to the reader, the form itself calls into question the potentially rigid boundaries between author and reader. The active manipulations of the poems and the decision-making process call attention to the interpretation performed in the reading of any literary work.
- Patrick
Posted by: Patrick at September 23, 2003 10:13 PM | Permalink to CommentI wonder if the beauty of the interface is not being judged by reading habits.
The first example that Audre gives allows me to click through and read a number of first lines in succession. I can do something similar with with the third example given but the looping phenomenon of deja-vu will not be as intense since there is the visual reminder of the grid displaying the structure as it is used as a navigation device (one senses that there are only ten variations to a line-slot). The second example frustrates this kind of focus-on-a-line reading simply because the centred layout of the poems has the eye watching both ends of the line shrinking and expanding accordian-like with each change (in relation to the lines below). Its an effect that becomes interesting in its own right. The third example doesn't allow one to easily record a numeral to reaccess a poem -- one must remember the layout of squares which would tend to privilege arrangements that form easy to reproduce patterns.
Fascinating. The "paratextual" elements of an interface can be understood less as conditionning a response (pleasing or not) and more as ways of exploring a sample space. Without the second example's layout and its comparison with the other two examples in a cycle of reading, I would not have thought of developing a sensitivity to length of line.
And now I bend to pick up a valise only to discover later if it belongs to me.
Ciao
Posted by: Francois Lachance at September 24, 2003 11:36 AM | Permalink to Comment