Georges Perec was a French man of letters, the author of a famous novel that doesn’t use the letter ‘e’. He was a lover of puzzles and patterns, and often chose to create strange structures for the novels he wrote: for example, the movement of the horse on the chess board. The observant reader has no doubt remarked to herself that the current blog entry attempts, by way of homage to Perec, to evade the use one of the most common vowels, and nonetheless make sense: a rather complex task, and one that demands an oddly roundabout approach. We can see, however, that after a couple of attempts, what was once a block becomes a spur.
Below, we post a poem by a young Perec fan (by no means a language expert, but clearly possessed of a natural talent), a second homage, but of another hue. We urge you to share your efforts!
Let me set the scene:
Her sweet essence rendered them speechless
She knew excess, even greed,
Nevertheless her very presence kept them keen
She let them tremble by her feet
Ever she pretended they were elsewhere
Except he
He enfenced her strength, never let her be, kept her
Her needs fed, she felt settled
Even serene
They were green, envy settled deep
He never deserved her energy
She needed them, they were the better men
Excellent types, they felt deeply
December the seventh, seventeen seventy three, fell
The eve emerged reservedly, she felt the end descend
Flesh spent, members rent
They rendered her free
Yet when hence she emerged, the sweetness they remembered ended
Her effervescent energy wrecked
The envy they knew bled them dry
Regret entrenched them
They trembled, fell
