According to Bayamus, semantic poetry is based on words, words which are taken straight out of emotionally neutral dictionaries, sharp words which correspond exactly to normal exigencies of precision. In other words, each word which appears in the given source text is to be substituted for by its dictionary definition. Within the domain of this poetry, we do not say, for example, 'horse’, but rather 'a solid-hoofed, plant-eating domesticated mammal with a flowing mane and tail, used for riding, racing, and to carry and pull weights’. Readers of Bayamus will quickly realise that the entire story is written in this manner, using dictionary definitions – an exertion which carries with it strong comic effect, especially when simple objects of everyday use are described with lengthy formulations and cold terms, as if taken out of a dispute between academic physicists. The only things required for semantic poetry are the chosen text we wish to adapt, and a dictionary.
…and definition literature
During this time, artists of the OuLiPo group were developing an identical literary invention but giving it a name of their own, ‘definition literature’. It was introduced by Raymond Queneau. One of its most prominent inventions was the literature developed by Georges Perec and Marcel Bénabou, as part of which the practice of transcribing given terms into other terms also seeks to achieve a pre-determined goal, such as to change the style or transform an idea included in the given fragment. The technique even allowed one to reconstruct an entirely different quotation starting from a selected text.
Below is an example taken from the OuLiPo Compendium, (edited by Harry Mathews & Alastair Brotchie, Revised & Updated, Atlas Press, London, 2011 pg. 227):
'A time of a adversity befalleth us like hidden water issuing distantly from the earth.'
(The Book of Ecclesiastes)
Thanks to the transformations guided by dictionary definitions, the above terms allow us to apply the following substitutes:
time: period of gestation
adversity: condition marked by calamity
befall: impose by destiny
hidden: covert
water: any liquid organic secretion
issue: discharge
distant: aloof
earth: foxhole
And when we put together all of those substitutes, we come up with the following quote:
The period of gestation was a condition marked by calamity, covertly imposed by an aloof destiny. Amniotic fluid was discharged in a foxhole.
What do we find? It is a fragment of Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex! A mastery of language has rendered possible a real magician’s trick – a text from the Old Testament has been turned into a quotation from the manifesto of feminism. As you can deduce, this language game can go on forever, and the only limits are those of one’s own resources of knowledge.
OuLiPo’s other favourite and ongoing activity was historical work: searching for OuLiPo methods employed before OuLiPo was even founded. Such discovered past methods were wittily monikered 'plagiarism through anticipation’. For the members of OuLiPo, by this definition some of the plagiarists included Lewis Carroll, Edgar Allan Poe and Raymond Roussel.
The established rules of the OuLiPo milieu definitely include Stefan Themerson in this venerable circle.
Tomasz Wiśniewski, January, 2016
translated by Paulina Schlosser