12:50 p.m. — San Antonio
listening to the heater
Hello, everyone. Those of you who were with me last year know that I participated in the Found Poetry Review’s April Challenge. They may not remember that two weeks before, I posted an introductory sort of thing. All the participants do so, so the people running the show can make sure we are copacetic.
One big difference this year is that my responses will appear here each day [and possibly on my tumblr site]. When I post my poem, I shall include the prompt, so that you can try them if you wish. They look like they are going to be crazy fun.
Another big difference is that we cannot work ahead. Our responses will be drawn from each day’s newspaper.
Those of you reading this who are participating, welcome. This is my regular blog, which I will suspend for April.
1] WHAT EXCITES YOU ABOUT OULIPOST?
Right now, coming off of driving halfway across the country, a crisis with my 85 year old mother, the funeral of my brother-in-law, and a bout of food poisoning, nothing. This is why my answers will be short.
I will be most excited by all the new ways to create found poetry.
2] WHAT, IF ANYTHING, SCARES YOU ABOUT OULIPOST?
This is easy. It takes me weeks, months sometimes, to conceive, write, revise, and ‘finish’ a poem. The thought of doing all that in one day… If I had the energy I’d consider being a basket case. As it is, the past ten days have taken care of that.
3] HAVE YOU WRITTEN EXPERIMENTAL OR FOUND POETRY BEFORE? IF SO, TELL US ABOUT IT.
I learned to write poetry, or that I could write poetry, when I was forty. In the process, my mentor included found poetry, so the concept is not new to me. I discovered the Found Poetry Review when I began this blog, almost four years ago. The journal opened my eyes to all the crazy, wonderful, exciting ways found poetry can be, well, found. Since last year’s Pulitzer Remix, my heart has dwelt with found poetry.
4] WHAT NEWSPAPER WILL SERVE AS YOUR SOURCE TEXT?
The Wall Street Journal, except for Sundays, when I will use a local Atlanta paper. We have a local to the area I live every two weeks paper that I would like to take a couple of poems from.
5. WHO’S YOUR SPIRIT OULIPIAN?
Marcel Duchamp. Okay, I am running out of steam and had no energy to begin with, so short bits and quotes rather than an exposition, and my apologies.
“All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualification and thus adds his contribution to the creative act. This becomes even more obvious when posterity gives a final verdict and sometimes rehabilitates forgotten artists.” –(From Session on the Creative Act, Convention of the American Federation of Arts, Houston, Texas, April 1957)
I knew Duchamp as an artist, so am tickled at the parallels with found poetry. He coined the term readymade. ‘Rrose Sélavy, or Rose Sélavy, was one of the pseudonyms of artist Marcel Duchamp. The name, a pun, sounds like the French phrase “Eros, c’est la vie”, which translates to English as “eros, that’s life”. ‘ — right there he became my choice.
I hope to be a whole lot cheerier next time I meet my fellow Ouliposters. Well, yes, you too my regular crowd, but you know me. This is the new people’s first sight, so they might be alarmed.
I will be back Tuesday with a regular prompt.
Margo Roby: Wordgathering 