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Tuesday, February 9, 2021

OuLiPo's Ten: An Open Letter To Ou-Know-Who From Ulysses Poe

     Does anyone have an inkling as to what might 
result from distilling the essences of OuLiPo's 
instigators into anagrams of their names placed 
on the rears of doggerel distichs? Nonsense sensai 
Ulysses Poe imagines he does.

To: tou, ununruly OuLiPo!
Hommage à you, from Uly Poe.

     Noël Arnaud 
bawls, “Bloody hell!
We'd all soon drown 
     around an El.”

     Jacques Bens 
(though friends may disagree)
has voted been 
     “Jass Queen (BC).”
     
OuLiPo! OuLiPo!
A, E, I, O, ULiPo!
     
     Claude Berge 
(a man best known as “Bud”)
pens tomes which graph his 
     large bee cud.
     
     Jacques Duchateau: 
dead, nu…?
     J’s cue qua Death...? A “**c***u!”

OuLiPo! OuLiPo!
What...? Why...? When...? Where...? WhoLiPo!
    
     Emmanuel Peillet, 
with zeal,
express’d it: “I meant 
     pull me eel.”

     François Le Lionnais 
agrees: “Blows no stiff breeze to roil
my new abecedarial 
     nonsensical airfoil.”
     
OuLiPo! OuLiPo!
Ten, eight, six, four, twoLiPo!

     Jean Lescure 
each broomer girl
esteems. Just hear him: 
     “See Jane curl!”

     Raymond Queneau: 
ya ring steel pan,
ya sing wid’ ban.’ 
     Queer...? Nya! Oud man.

OuLiPo! OuLiPo! 
(As such, they're much like you, Li Po.)

     Jean Queval, 
who must be seen
to be believ’d: 
     J, Lava Queen.

     Albert-Marie Schmidt 
claims it isn’t his fault:
sans searching, he finds, 
     amid birch trees…malt.
 
You be but what you doLiPo!
Yours very truly, 
                             Uly Poe.

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