Forms
Homophony and Punkwatrain
Homophony is a constraint in which one derives a new text from a pre-existing one by imitating its sound. Most of us played homophonic games as children: "past your eyes" for "pasteurize." In Oulipian practice, homophony is generally used to create sequences of short fictitious episodes; these are presented like riddles whose solutions are the homophonies (often preposterous) on which they are based.
Some years ago Tom La Farge and Wendy Walker lead a Writhing Society session expanding this exercise with the Punkwatrain, adapted from Robert Rapilly's invention (in French), "le katrainbour." This is a quatrain that expands a single line which is a homophonic version (pun) of a name. Here is an example linking Gowanus Canal with Galway (S.) Kinnell, composed in this session by Erik Schurink.
the long, perfect loveliness of Gowanus Canal
when your sewer smells like hogs in hell
think of it as the Sow, blessed by a Saint,
mirror it as thy Self, rich with constraint,
advises poet Galway S. KinnellReturn to home