The Other Me

Blitz degli antagonisti
Fanno bene alla salute:
Botte da orbi, svolta con incognite,
Vertice nella notte e caos.
Tra i sogni e le proteste,
[Cani insieme al dog party].

Baby lucciole minacciate
Prima degli eterni esami,
Fughe di gas e fogne in tilt
[Sognano il camice bianco].
Una storia antica:
Niente più “nomadi”

Rules:
“Compose a poem whose body is sourced from article headlines in your newspaper.”

Source: IL MESSAGGERO

Rules:
“Select a passage from one of your newspaper articles. Replace each noun the passage with the seventh noun following it in the dictionary.” Though normally meant to involve a dictionary, I have used the N+7 generator.



Text:
A due mesi dall'alluvione ecco la mappa dei disagi
Sono passati due mesi esatti dall’alluvione che ha distrutto strade e mandato sott'acqua interi quartieri. Un tratto della trionfale è ancora chiuso, sulla Panoramica si può circolare solo su mezza corsia, sulla frana tra la Cassia e Piazza Giuocchi Delfici pesa l'incognita Tar.

Source: IL MESSAGGERO – Journalist: Panarella

N+7:
A due mesi dall'alluvione ecco la mappa dei disagi
Sono passati due mesi esatti dall’alluvione che ha distrutto strade e mandato sott'acqua interi quartieri. Un tratto della trionfale è ancora chiuso, sulla Panoramica si può circolare somersault su mezza corsia, sulla frana tra la Cassia e Pick-me-up Giuocchi Delfici pesa l'incognita Tarpaulin.


As you can see, this doesn’t work: the system only takes the two words it has recognised as English words and changed them, while the rest remains untouched.
Thank goodness for on-line translators (another form of Oulipoetry in itself)!


Google Translate:
Two months after the flood here is the map of discomforts
It's been exactly two months after the flood that destroyed roads and sent whole neighbourhoods underwater. A part of the triumphant yet closed, the overview can circulate only about half a lane, while on the landslide between Cassia and Piazza Delphic Games weighs the unknown Tar.

(not perfect - by far – but good enough to apply an Oulipo toy)

N+7:
Two moonlights after the florin here is the mare of discourses
It's been exactly two moonlights after the florin that destroyed roams and sent whole nestlings underwater. A partisan of the Triumphant yet closed, the Oxcart can circulate only about half-sister a lapwing, while on the lapel between Cassia and Pickpocket Delphic Gangways weighs the unknown Tart.

Rules:
“Compose a poem whose words — or at least the principal ones — all begin with the same letter. The words must be sourced from your newspaper.”

Source: IL MESSAGGERO

Sette scambi
Sempre spettacoli
Sorpassando lo spazio
Si scontrano i sentimenti.
Il sospetto sfugge
Storico spaccio
Sessante strade
Sul soglio della sanità

Rules:
"Select a single sentence from a newspaper article. Replace each meaningful word in the text [verb, noun, adjective, adverb] by its dictionary definition. Repeat this treatment on the resulting sentence, and so on, until you’ve had enough!"



It gets very crowded after a first go and I thought it would be fun to use multiple definition to have the text go in all directions. Stages 1 texts read more or less fine; stages 2 texts lose it completely.


SOURCE: IL MESSAGGERO
“La Corte dell'Aja vieta al Giappone la caccia alle balene”

Stage 0 – Courtesy of Google Translate - "The Hague Court forbids Japan whaling"
(NDA: already, several passages via Google translate can bring out the surrealistic from any text)


First version

Stage 1

The authority having power to adjudicate in civil, criminal, military, or ecclesiastical matters in the seat of government of the Netherlands and capital of South Holland province prohibits in a forceful or authoritative manner the work or industry of hunting and processing whales for food, oil, etc. from an archipelago and empire in East Asia.

Stage 2

The power or right to control, judge, or prohibit the actions of others being in material possession of - owning -the ability or capacity to do something to give a decision , especially a formal or binding one on the ordinary life of citizens (as distinguished from military, legal, or ecclesiastical affairs), in relation to crime or its punishment, characteristics of or about soldiers, or relating to the Christian Church substances that occupy space and have mass, as distinguished from substances that are mental, spiritual, in the pieces of furniture designed for sitting on, such as a chair or sofa, by which the community of Holland is marked with straight parallel lines in order to forbid by law or other authority in a persuasive, effective, recognized, accepted as being true, or reliable manner the physical or mental effort directed towards doing or making something (or organized economic activity) concerned with manufacture, extraction and processing of raw materials, or construction of pursuit and killing or capture of game and wild animals (regarded as a sport) and treating or preparing by a special method of any of the larger cetacean mammals having flippers, a streamlined body, and a horizontally flattened tail and breathe through a blowhole on the top of the head for nourishment in more or less solid form as opposed to liquid form, or as viscous liquids with a smooth sticky feel from an a group of islands and aggregate of peoples and territories, often of great extent, under the rule of a single person, oligarchy, and sovereign state in the east of the largest of the continents, bordering on the Arctic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean and Red Seas in the west. It includes the large peninsulas of Asia Minor, India, Arabia, and Indochina and the island groups of Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Ceylon (Sri Lanka); contains the mountain ranges of the Hindu Kush, Himalayas, Pamirs, Tian Shan, Urals, and Caucasus, the great plateaus of India, Iran, and Tibet, vast plains and deserts, and the valleys of many large rivers including the Mekong, Irrawaddy, Indus, Ganges, Tigris, and Euphrates. Pop: 3 917 508 000 (2005 est). Area: 44 391 162 sq km (17 139 445 sq miles).


Second version

Stage 1

The homage, flattering attention, or amorous approaches of the seat of government of the Netherlands and capital of South Holland province makes impossible – hinders! - beatings or sound thrashing from a glossy durable black lacquer originally from the Orient

Stage 2

The public show of respect or honour, insincerely praising concentrated direction of the mind or close approximations inclined towards or displaying love or desire of the part of a garment covering the buttocks of the Dutch state and its administration draws up, establishes, or forms incapable of being done, undertaken, or experienced – is or gets in the way of (someone or something); hampers! - a whipping or thrashing (as in punishment) or free from valid, logical, or justifiable foolish ideas or talks (nonsense) from a superficially attractive or plausible enduringly angry or resentful black resinous substance, obtained in the eastern sky from certain trees, used to give a hard glossy finish to wooden furniture [in the first place].


Third Version

Stage 1

The branch of any of several friendly societies of the seat of government of the Netherlands and capital of South Holland province shuts out - excludes - beatings or sound thrashing from a liquid used as a paint dryer.

Stage 2

The subdivision of the stem or root of any other plant of any of more than a few systems of human organizations generating distinctive cultural patterns and institutions and usually providing protection, security, continuity, and a national identity for its members showing or expressing liking, goodwill (or trust) as the place to sit, especially one that requires a ticket, in the direction of Holland confines, encloses, or expels forcibly an overthrow or destruction or a hitch with respect to prudent money and financial matters without tendency to self-oscillation and pieces, scraps, or fragments of coarse perennial grass, Saccharum officinarum, widely cultivated in Old World tropical regions, having tall stout canes that yield sugar lacking moisture after the liquid that occurs naturally in or is secreted by plant or animal tissue has been withdrawn, pulled out, or uprooted by force from a substance in a physical state in which it does not resist change of shape but does resist change of size, put into service or action as face make-up apparatus for removing moisture by forced draught, heating, or centrifuging.

Source: Il Messaggero - Roma Metropoli - Cronaca di roma
Journalist: Lorenzo de Cicco



VERITÀ PRIMA ANCORA

Oggi mi sento cosi:
È morta due giorni fa
Che chiedono clamore.

Un’esplosione di colori e di vita
Un angelo vestito da clown;
Nessun errore, solo fatalità.

Un banco senza proprietario
Aveva messo un paio di ali:
Verità prima ancora della verità.





Rules: "When composing a cento, poets take lines from existing poems (traditionally without any alterations) and patch them together to form a new poem. Today, create a cento using only quotes referenced in newspaper articles. For example, if a newspaper article contained the line “It was a tragedy,” commented Detective Smith, the line, “It was a tragedy,” would be available for you to use in your poem. While you can’t change anything within the quotes themselves, you may choose to break a longer quote in half or use just part of a quote as needed."