Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Oulipost #22: ANTONYMY

Prompt: In Oulipian usage, antonymy means the replacement of a designated element by its opposite. Each word is replaced by its opposite, when one exists (black/white) or by an alternative suggesting antonymy (a/the, and/or, glass/wood).

Original: To be or not to be, that is the question.
Antonymy: To not be and to be: this was an answer.

Select a passage from your newspaper source text to complete this exercise.



Source: http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20140421/NEWS/140429961&cid=mostclicked

The garage was fully engulfed
in flames within five minutes
of the first loud bangs
The garage was burned
to the ground leaving only
a few charred beams still
standing


BIG FREEZE

a mansion is minimally dug out
out of water

without a thousand years
of a last silent slow motion

a mansion is frozen
to a sky coming together

the lot extinguished frowns
agitated and lying down.

2 comments:

Nancy Chen Long said...

I love the way this turned out, the way you lineated it, especially this "a mansion is frozen / to a sky coming together." Nice!

jam.es said...

yeah - this is really terrifically laid out - a testament to what format can do for a piece!