I’ve been digging through some old poetry of mine and found a couple of pieces of constrained writing, including this poem below written using something called the prisoner’s constraint. Topically, it’s based on a true story in the same way LeCroix is based on fruit: it’s an earnest attempt at truth that doesn’t come anywhere close to passable or plausible, but does end up becoming enjoyable in its own right.
Growing up I heard this story of two Welsh brothers, my ancestors, stowing away on a ship bound for the new continent. How or why they found themselves in this position, I’ll never know. The story as I heard it ended there. Some time later I decided to come up with a few more details of my own and turn it into a sort of story.
Constrained Writing System#
The prisoner’s constraint was developed by the Oulipo. They are a group of French mathematicians and writers who I will inevitability write a post about one day, but not today. The conceit is that the speaker is attempting to conserve paper and cannot use any letters with a stem extending above or below the body of the text. In short, most consonants are forfeit, including b,d,f,g,h,j,k,l,p,q,t, and y.
I liked the idea of someone trying to conserve paper while composing a message under duress. Plus, the notion that stowaways are in a prison of their own design was a nice compliment to the poem and the constraint.
american course
Written using the prisoner’s constraint, which assumes the speaker has written the below on a small piece of paper and must conserve the precious space (i.e.without the use of the letters b,d,f,g,h,j,k,l,p,q,t,y)
sun-course i. nov. sunrise. no crewmen saw us come on. seas are an in azure coma. warm. no coarse airs. we are unseen even now in our narrow crevice near some cases o’ cure-cunner so we can consume some sea cuisine. wise seamen rumor over ocean omens, crimson suns or sea vixen romances, so we muse over our anxious course: ensconce on a crown’s scooner an’ rove across oceans on an american course. we own no sincere recourse. ransom irons, iron screens are secure insurance, a sea souvenir, even.
sun-course iv. one in morn. a moan near us rouses us in noire. we saw no source, so we cower w/ our noses in rosin & reason our ruin. so soon were we mince scooner vermin! soon, i sense a curious noise: mews & meows. on a case over me cranium, i saw ii eerie moss moons. i saw a mere siamese mouser. our aroma can uncover us in our crevice as we snooze. we convince ’er in remain’ w us usin’ some sea cuisine.
sun-course xx. we are in sour seas o’ ice. no snoozen’, even w our mouser. we are nauseous. we sneeze in noxious air. we are anxious some coxswains sense our noises. our marrows were so raw, we crave some warm. i cozen some sacs o’ rice so we can cram our nauseous arses in ’em. some seamen rumor we are near america, ‘owever no one can see, no one is sure. we curse our rains. ice. ice. ice. we snooze.
sun-course xxi. we are arinse in ocean sauce. near noon, a noise rose us in a snooze. over our case, we saw crewmen assume our scow was in a sea-course once more. once more! we were unmoorin in america as we saw ’em voice. so we ran, over our scooner an’ swim in an azure american ocean.
