Definitions

Sorry, no definitions found. Check out and contribute to the discussion of this word!

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word oulipo.

Examples

  • For the curious, the writing style is an example of "oulipo", where literature is considered a game of language rather than a means of representing the world and usually involves some form of mathematics or numbers to create art.

    REVIEW: 253 - The Print Remix by Geoff Ryman 2006

  • One can have ten or twelve of these interests and not bring about the kind of diversity that you might see from someone who is really into one relatively esoteric thing like, say, an oulipo fanatic.

    Bang Bang, Bang Bang SVGL 2009

  • Kevin Barnes began the decade as a purveyor of twee-ish ornate oulipo-ian pop songs which would have put him on the list anyway.

    Best Albums of the Decade, 39-29.5 2009

  • I was with fellow poet Christan Bok who had much to say about Place, the press, and the upcoming n/oulipo publication a compendium of the noulipo conference.

    Vanessa Place, Round One Lemon Hound 2008

  • I was with fellow poet Christan Bok who had much to say about Place, the press, and the upcoming n/oulipo publication a compendium of the noulipo conference.

    Archive 2008-07-01 Lemon Hound 2008

  • Queen of the Moon is a story I wrote as an oulipo sort of exercise that some friends and I did late last fall, for which the limitations were: short story of less than 2000 words, fits the description "sci fi ghost story," done by Friday.

    Queen of the Moon, etc 2006

  • Queen of the Moon is a story I wrote as an oulipo sort of exercise that some friends and I did late last fall, for which the limitations were: short story of less than 2000 words, fits the description "sci fi ghost story," done by Friday.

    February 2006 2006

  • Drunkenboat 8 is almost ready to go live...there are two features, one folio of Canadian arts & letters edited by yours truly and a fabulous oulipo folio that I'm sure will be a great online resource.

    Archive 2006-09-01 Lemon Hound 2006

  • Drunkenboat 8 is almost ready to go live...there are two features, one folio of Canadian arts & letters edited by yours truly and a fabulous oulipo folio that I'm sure will be a great online resource.

    Online Journals Lemon Hound 2006

  • "how dare you" finger at the whole notion of the abridged and the censure … but the genius is that it is beautiful, weird, and something like a jackson mac low or oulipo project … beautiful!

    Brit Lit Blogs no-reply@britlitblogs.com (Vertigo: Collecting 2010

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • OUvroir de LIttérature POtentielle - Though all writing is executed within the confines of the possible, how some write certain of their works is through the application of conscientious constraints. Were they of other sensibilities they might be called masochists, the Oulipians have formed a support group that has degenerated into the creation, compilation and general abetment of constrained writing techniques, such as is employed in this comment, which was fastidiously constructed only with the finest letters of the alphabet.

    December 2, 2006

  • An example (from futilitycloset.com):

    Here's Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud" as rendered by Jean Lescure's "N+7″ procedure, replacing each noun with the seventh following it in a dictionary:

    The Imbeciles

    I wandered lonely as a crowd

    That floats on high o'er valves and ills

    When all at once I saw a shroud,

    A hound, of golden imbeciles;

    Beside the lamp, beneath the bees,

    Fluttering and dancing in the cheese.

    Continuous as the starts that shine

    And twinkle in the milky whey,

    They stretched in never-ending nine

    Along the markdown of a day:

    Ten thrillers saw I at a lance

    Tossing their healths in sprightly glance.

    The wealths beside them danced; but they

    Out-did the sparkling wealths in key:

    A poker could not be but gay,

    In such a jocund constancy:

    I gazed - and gazed - but little thought

    What weave to me the shred had brought:

    For oft, when on my count I lie

    In vacant or in pensive nude,

    They flash upon that inward fly

    That is the block of turpitude;

    And then my heat with plenty fills

    And dances with the imbeciles.

    March 16, 2009

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oulipo

    December 4, 2017

  • Daniel Tammet, in his book Every Word Is a Bird We Teach to Sing, has a chapter titled Oulipo which includes his adaptation of Daffodils without using the letter "twixt d and f". See oroboros' comment.

    March 9, 2021