We have come to one of the Oulipo constraints which has a name I just adore – Beau Present. Being enamoured of the name doesn’t make the constraint any easier, though. With the beautiful inlaw, we are to compose a poem which is comprised only of the letters found in the name which we chose from our paper; ideally, the poem is for the person named. This is one constraint where I think everyone is using an online anagram generator. The name I selected, Bizimana Emmanuel, had over 30,000 anagrams. I gave up looking at them after a thousand. Lesson learned – longer is not always better. Ouliposter Doug Lumen handled this one beautifully. See his Oulipo Beau Present , and check out the beautiful inlaws of other Ouliposters at the Found Poetry Review.
Bouquet for Bizimana Emmanuel
zinnia amble –
blue azalea beam
biennial amaze
a main umbel
a zen elm
a lime, ablaze
amen
Sullivan, Katherine. Rwanda marks genocide history
Boston Globe, April 8, 2014
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