We can’t allow it to take away from our aggressiveness.
We have to be disciplined.
Our movement wasn’t as good as it normally is.
We have to make quick decisions. We have to go through them.
You could say fatigue. We got lackadaisical. And they capitalized on it.
We’ll be fine.
We can’t put our heads down.
I saw them talking to him.
It makes it a little more gutless. You don’t need to be going after him when he doesn’t even know where he really is.
I’m not happy about that.
We can’t use that as an excuse. But you could see he was tiring a little bit.
He was giving us what he had.
He has actually been doing a really nice job.
Everyone grieves differently.  Obviously, he’s going through a tough time.
I don’t want to talk about that.
Got to give credit where credit is due.
Now we’re in a similar situation.
It’s cliche but it’s what we need to do.
It gets my head spinning. It’s not anything I’m used to.
It’s never been touched.
It gives you a little fire when you see that happen right in front of you.
It is like watching some sort of magician work. 
Her process is so internal, and so finite and so flawless.
They said, ‘This is going to be insane.’
There’s no panic on their side, and there won’t be.
Now it’s public, and you have to sort of quiet up the noise.
It would be nice. It would be super nice. But I wouldn’t want to share the fun.
Just attack.

Sources:
Teddy Greenstein. “‘A tough time’ for Noah: Grieving loss of mentor, Bulls center struggles in dueling Wizards’ Nene.” Chicago Tribune. 21 April 2014: Sports, 5.

K.C. Johnson. “Stealing Home: Bulls give up the advantage by letting series opener slip away at United Center.” Chicago Tribune. 21 April 2014: Sports, 1.

Colleen Kane. “Stalled offense finds some life: Semien, Danks ignite attack as Sox end 4-game losing streak.” Chicago Tribune. 21 April 2014: Sports, 3.

Chris Kuc. “Getting dirty look: Seabrook draws 3-game suspension; taunting, Bickell hits also anger Blues.”  Chicago Tribune. 21 April 2014: Sports, 1.

Fred Mitchell. “Clutch bunch: Reds’ 2-out hitting something Cubs hope to emulate.” Chicago Tribune. 21 April 2014: Sports, 3.

Yvonne Villarreal . “‘Orphan Black’ star an expert multitasker.” Chicago Trbune. 21 April 2014: Arts + Entertainment, 3.

The prompt:
Craft a conversation poem using “he said/she said” quotes that you find in newspaper articles.
http://www.foundpoetryreview.com/blog/oulipost-21-confabulation/

Through forest-clenched winters,
along roiling streets and
urban rivers
toward
whatever
dragons
understanding
crimes and
complicated clones
may help
reveal.

I imagined the
fine stags
tenderly strung
with
jewelry
shells and
tiny teeth
charming family
friends
and
loved years
12,000 ones
before
more modern pyramids
built
the great people
in Egypt.

Sources (in order of appearance):
McNamara, Mary. “TV relationships finally get more complex”. Chicago Tribune. 20 April 2014: Arts + Entertainment, 6.

Steves, Rick. “Europe’s art framed in the quiet moments”. Chicago Tribune. 20 April 2014: Travel, 2.

The prompt:
Select a newspaper article or passage from a newspaper article as your source text. Switch the first noun with the second noun, the third noun with the fourth noun, and so on until you’ve reached the end of your text.
http://www.foundpoetryreview.com/blog/oulipost-20-lescurean-permutation-plain/

Scent sits clean on hymen

and detain the entry
offer it to clean  home
on amber eyes,
and the needs meant
(loathe a month)
anemia of scenic true bliss.
map
plan
mere algae around
sooth scant use.
tease in region,
and the theory.
(soft honey)
wrap aura
tuck anew
aloud
guide the teeth clean
so they —
carotid-clad —
dive
elope
untie
ebbs foamy planetoid
noise aurora
agate
we amoebas —
boatlike aethers —
enthuse atomic lily afield.
they heave aside
ripe
reductive
clean
eyeing wild beneath coil.
endure
arise upon us ably

Source:
Monte Morin.”Scientists clone human embryonic stem cells from 2 adults”. Chicago Tribune. 18 April 2014: 15.

The prompt:
Choose a sentence or short passage from your newspaper to complete a homoconsonantism. In this form, the sequence of consonants in a source text is kept, while all its vowels are replaced. For example:
ORIGINAL: To be or not to be: that is the question.
CONSONANTS ONLY: T b r n t t b t t s t h q s t n
FINAL PRODUCT: At burnt tibia: it heats the aqueous tone.

http://www.foundpoetryreview.com/blog/oulipost-18-homoconsonantism/

The passage I chose: “In addition, the entire effort to clone human embryos and then dismantle them in the name of science troubles some people on moral grounds.
The scientists in Oregon and the authors of the new report acknowledged that the clones they created could develop into babies if implanted in surrogate wombs. But like others in the stem cell field, they have said reproductive cloning would be unethical and irresponsible.”

Don’t share to your military.
Don’t wave aircraft when leaning in tank.
Don’t decipher
(so-called and unique).
And never read
or nod
your airplane
in Warthog.

Those appearances read
(looked on)
a ferocity of
“10 language-driven A-10 Thunderbolts”
that an Air Force
in red-eyed equivalent
recently was nodding
to rural grunts.

Flying year,
an old-fashioned enemy,
said the range
(a career),
happening
a Southern Gothic Cold War
of
conflicts
and Iraq online.
Afghanistan to be —
the Pentagon of Communist fleet cuts
should know —
almost as replete
as the defense spending itself.

But the aircraft teach
(at once)
subtlest and dynamic
since billions are over
as few years
of the Defense Department
officials
in November 2012
and as
Air Force
the diminutive aircraft.

F-35
Joint Strike Fighter’s
“close air support”
means
second-floor divestitures
dreaming over their friends
for military decision of
Air Force Chief of
Staff Gen. Mark Welsh
by Senate
Armed Services
Committees,
as well as
week
on choices or
by A-10s.  

Campaign,
an aircraft of
340,000 history in aviation,
considers to have studied the airplane to ground,
putting out to study
exactly what its pilots build
young
and look
a friend to such foes.

Used on
1,700 eyes
misused
from A-10s,
(dozens)
and lives,
the Iraq Afghanistan —
in emotional way —
tries a plane of
10 young air support platforms
that would
henceforward
be installed.

Among them:
have A-10 from Sen.
Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H.,
looking illegally,
said
other news conferences
to happen
(Thursdays)
and leave small Sen.
John McCain, R-Arizs
to the A-10
pilots.

Are hearings,
looking
or happening
them to grow your A-10s,
eating your reviews or
eating your A-10
are also
asked upon.

On aircraft, the planet,
a local Army Gen.
Martin Dempsey shrugged
the chairman
had asked
(interesting).

But its Joint Chiefs of Staff
was quickly considered
with Air Force
officials of both
defense cuts
and choice
on
A-10 fleet.

“These is late budget pictures,”
said one
choice on the choices.
“How can such Air
Force Secretary Deborah Lee
James use committees
spur the Welsh?”

“They explained to be read
such
17-year Air Forces?”
another
“a full-spectrum fight”
watch.
“These missions should say
back to air support.”

The airplane also
recently
focused up
an air support
and things for A-10
means: to ask the way
on platforms who compete
the lovely comments
and said Air
Forces
to like air support of aircraft
on their F-35
Joint
Strike
Fighter.

The prompt:
“The chimera of Homeric legend – lion’s head, goat’s body, treacherous serpent’s tail – has a less forbidding Oulipian counterpart. It is engendered as follows. Having chosen a newspaper article or other text for treatment, remove its nouns, verbs and adjectives. Replace the nouns with those taken in order from a different work, the verbs with those from a second work, the adjectives with those from a third.
http://www.foundpoetryreview.com/blog/oulipost-16-chimera/

Sources:
Base article:
Simon Denye. “Chinese officials warned of ‘10 forbidden behaviors’”. Chicago Tribune. 16 April 2014: 15.

Noun substitution article:
Christian Davenport. ” Plan to scrap Warthog fleet hits resistance: Supporters fight to save ‘great old friend’ as Pentagon looks to make spending cuts”. Chicago Tribune . 16 April 2014: 16.

Verb substitution article:
Christopher Borrelli. ” The future is (almost) now: Why sci-fi has rooted itself in technology and concerns of the short term, rather than the far-flung”.  Chicago Tribune . 16 April 2014: Arts + Entertainment, 4.

Adjective substitution article:
Chris Jones.  “Cicadas buzz within this Southern Gothic story”. Chicago Tribune. 16 April 2014: Arts + Entertainment, 5.

Author’s note: Man, English grammar is confusing.

Little Beads of Grit

luxuriously
tiny plastic particles
a gentle scrubbing
~
in rivers and lakes
slip through sewage system filters
particles so small
~
fish, other wildlife
absorb toxic chemicals
mistake them for food

 Source: Michelle Manchir and Taylor Goldenstein. “State targets tiny beads: Skin cleanser ingredient poses ecological risks”. Chicago Tribune. 17 April 2014: 1.

Mount Thorium

boat slips on river
gauze soaked radioactive
sandy leftovers

Source: Michael Hawthorne. “Just off Mag Mile sits city’s toxic past: Radioactive waste from early 1900s dogs Streeterville”. Chicago Tribune. 17 April 2014: 1.

The prompt:
The haiku is a Japanese poetic form whose most obvious feature is the division of its 17 syllables into lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables. Haikuisation has sometimes been used by Oulipians to indicate the reduction of verses of normal length to lines of haiku-like brevity. Select three sentences from a single newspaper article and “haiku” them.
http://www.foundpoetryreview.com/blog/oulipost-17-haikuisation/

Author note: I handled this prompt two different ways. For the first, I reduced each of  the three sentences I selected into a separate haiku. For the second, I reduced each of the three selected sentences into a line in one haiku. I think the second method was more successful overall, but had a hard time doing this with my first article without eliminating the serious environmental issues it concerned.

In general I’ve tended towards lighter articles as my sources this month, as these techniques feel too playful to apply to more serious articles.  Just my bias, I’m sure, as I’ve seen my fellow Ouliposters use these techniques to create profound poems from heavy subjects. But in my hands, the results just seem to be disrespectfully absurd.

Remains in Camera

A man in our arm.

We are in a mosaic,
a new us.
We service in scenes —
a user in me, over wise.
We wave our incense  in error.
Our Zen is over,
In memories, a room.
Cousins on Mass in sermon service.
I was no communion.
Our wine: We were communion.
We were None.

We’re in movies,
an occasion,
we’re a reason in common,
worse, so mean.

No I in a room.
Come as I came.
Sworn in swear,
on our mission as a success.
Never so in common.

I was on mirrors eerie.
Consciousness science versus neuroscience.
Mere viewers
examine sense over course,
arm in never.

Sources:
Galanes, Philip. “Power Players: Nancy Pelosi and Julia Louis-Dreyfus discuss politics, celebrity and women at the top”. Chicago Tribune, digitalPLUS magazine. 15 April 2014: 3.

Huppke, Rex W. “New phrase that’s bound to pay in Age of Selfies”. Chicago Tribune. 15 April 2014: 2

Zeitchik, Steven. “Thinking outside the brain: ‘Transcendence’ has major processing power behind storyline about artificial intelligence”.  Chicago Tribune. 15 April 2014: Arts + Entertainment, 1.

The prompt:
Imagine a prisoner whose supply of paper is restricted. To put it to fullest use, he will maximize his space by avoiding any letter extending above or below the line (b, d,f,g,h,j,k,l,p,q,t and y) and use only a,c,e,m,n,o,r,s,u,v,w,x and z. Compose a poem using only words that can be made from these letters AND which you source from your newspaper text.
http://www.foundpoetryreview.com/blog/oulipost-15-prisoners-constraint/

STUFF FOR SALE

3 Workplace Future Presence April 26,
Selling all culture On pedestal Fairfax, Iowa
Walls @ www.wearsgravitas.com
Original Coke PowerPoints/Screens NO FORM (Large),
WWII Armed Companies Spider/Teleconferencing
Devices (Large), Yard Luxury, Metaphor/Office Building
Robot Facial Cues, Classic/Vintage Enthusiast/Gender/
User Designs, Hanging Person Brainstorming Walls,
Sensors, Human Sewn Skype Cues, Experience Related,
Facility Related Cues, Interaction & Image Design,
Pets, Workers, Experiences, Fidelity, Van Briggle,
Roseville, Strangeness Modern, Painted Counterpart,
Vintage Distances and Hallways, Meetings, Talent
Vacuum, Barnster Software, Attempt, & Indian
Colleague Telecomm.
www.wearsgravitas.com
www.wearsgravitas.com
555-624-3779

Sources:
Huppke, Rex W. “I, robot employee: New ‘telepresence robots’ could help us telecommute more efficiently, and it could happen sooner than you think”. Chicago Tribune. 14 April 2014: Business, 2.

Merchandise classifieds. Chicago Tribune. 14 April 2014: Business, 8.

The prompt:
Refer to the advertising section or the classifieds in your source newspaper. Create a poem by replacing all of the nouns in your chosen ad segment or classified listing with nouns from one article in the same newspaper. You may use multiple ads/classifieds, presented in the order of your choosing.
http://www.foundpoetryreview.com/blog/oulipost-14-column-inches/

Jessees

in pain, a test.
take it.

training in a granite rink,
cancer eaten.

start engineering a piece —
entire areas
in green springs.

an age
spent.

easier.

get near —

it’s air in a star.
see it.

Sources:
Reynolds, Jessica. “In sickness and in health: Grim diagnosis delayed wedding but strengthened a bond”. Chicago Tribune. 13 April 2014: Life + Style, 6.

Birds with Fish

right in with his birds
wild birds
in which birding is his sight
singing in birds
this is his intrinsic birding,
in night

“I think,
bird thinks,
I with bird —

light —
fish —
light —
bright,
still in mind,

bright

in big vivid bits
pink light
light in light

fish still

30 blind fish

fish wind light
in his film

fish minds light

in his
swimming

in his
kissing.

Sources:
Brotman, Barbara. “Bird-watching with an expert:  Author-illustrator turns trail guide for small band of enthusiasts”. Chicago Tribune. 11 April 2014: 4.

Hayes, John. “The truth behind trout eyesight”. Chicago Tribune digitalPLUS magazine. 11 April 2014: 14.

Lodge, Guy. “Brothers wrestle with death, angst”. Chicago Tribune. 11 April 2014: Arts + Entertainment, 4.

The prompt:
A univocalic text is one written with a single vowel. It is consequently a lipogram in all the other vowels. If he had been univocally minded, Hamlet might have exclaimed, “Be? Never be? Perplexed quest: seek the secret!” All words used must be sourced from your newspaper.

http://www.foundpoetryreview.com/blog/oulipost-11-univocalism/