Eunoia

Christian Bˆk Eunoia Toronto: Coach House Books, http://www.chbooks.com/online/eunoia/index.html, 2001 is a book with Oulipian experiments. Eunoia is written with a chapter for each vowel. Each chapter works within constraints, one of which is to use all words that only use that vowel. The chapters also begin with something about writing. There is a Flash version of the Chapter on E online along with the full text of the other chapters.

Here is some quotes from the text on writing. In Chapter A:

“Awkward grammar appals a craftsman. A Dada bard
as daft as Tzara damns stagnant art and scrawls an
alpha (a slapdash arc and a backward zag) that mars
all stanzas and jams all ballads (what a scandal). A
madcap vandal crafts a small black ankh ? a hand-
stamp that can stamp a wax pad and at last plant a
mark that sparks an ars magna (an abstract art that
charts a phrasal anagram). A pagan skald chants a dark
saga (a Mahabharata), as a papal cabal blackballs all
annals and tracts, all dramas and psalms: Kant and
Kafka, Marx and Marat. A law as harsh as a fatwa bans
all paragraphs that lack an A as a standard hallmark.”

Here is the Chapter E:
“Enfettered, these sentences repress free speech. The
text deletes selected letters. We see the revered exegete
reject metred verse: the sestet, the tercet ? even les
scËnes ÈlevÈes en grec. He rebels. He sets new precedents.
He lets cleverness exceed decent levels. He eschews the
esteemed genres, the expected themes ? even les belles
lettres en vers. He prefers the perverse French esthetes:
Verne, PÈret, Genet, Perec ? hence, he pens fervent
screeds, then enters the street, where he sells these let-
terpress newsletters, three cents per sheet. He engen-
ders perfect newness wherever we need fresh terms.”

Chapter I:
“Writing is inhibiting. Sighing, I sit, scribbling in ink
this pidgin script. I sing with nihilistic witticism,
disciplining signs with trifling gimmicks ? impish
hijinks which highlight stick sigils. Isn?t it glib?
Isn?t it chic? I fit childish insights within rigid limits,
writing shtick which might instill priggish misgiv-
ings in critics blind with hindsight. I dismiss nit-
picking criticism which flirts with philistinism. I
bitch; I kibitz ? griping whilst criticizing dimwits,
sniping whilst indicting nitwits, dismissing simplis-
tic thinking, in which philippic wit is still illicit.”