After the XIV OuUnPo research session in Stockholm entitled the Fugue, OuUnPo member Marco Pasi sent the following note to the other members of the network:
When I got back home from Stockholm it occurred to me that I still owed something to the group. Since the session was so inspiring to me, I thought the time had come to pay my dues. As you will remember, in December 2012 we celebrated the end of the world, at least as the Maya would have it. The idea was to convince that beautiful wandering asteroid to kiss our planet through a laser ray of poetry. Much catastrophe, very little heritage! I had collected all the poems you had read aloud on that night and which you sent me afterwards. I promised to remix them and I’ve finally done it now. The result is… well, little more than a poetic joke I guess. But it is in the spirit not only of OuUnPo, but also of our ancestor OuLiPo. I took the first verses of the poems you sent me and mixed them all up together. No words were added, no words were taken away. Non-English poems were translated (sort of) literally into Mr. Cameron’s idiom (yeah, right!). I only hesitated between dicks and bees, and went for the latter (sorry Natasha!). Dicks are good of course (although sometimes they can be full of shit), but bees sound more poetic to my old-fashioned ear.
And here is the original call from December 2012:
Dear OuUnPonians,
As you know the end of the world is nigh. But is it really? That charming little asteroid wandering through the stars, longing to impact onto our beloved planet in a few days, might get lost in the dark recesses of the endless sky... Now, we don’t want that, do we? As Immanuel Velikovsky and Zecharia Sitchin taught us, many good things come from collisions of planets. No more pollution! No more wars! No more bad art! So let’s join forces and help that precious little thing find its way. In order to do that, we shall project a beautiful ray of poetry from our homes that the small celestial body will surely pick up and follow. On Friday, the 21st, precisely at 8 PM (Paris time) you are kindly invited to read aloud a poem of your choice, in the language of your choice. If all goes well, we will have the most amazing fireworks ever by midnight! And please, do not forget: it will also be Winter solstice, so two celebrations for the price of a single poem!!!
After the facts, in the new world that will follow, we will collect all poems together and make a wonderful remix! Only space swans and stray stellar cats will have a chance to read it, possibly also Silver Surfer, but OuUnPo’s name will rock forever.
Have a nice end of the world!
And the collective poem:
A Portable Light-House for Attracting Asteroids
Once upon a time there was
As in fables
A silver Lucifer
Enlightened by immensity
Oh sky, oh earth
Do you remember still
the falling stars?
And how many nights
Between you and me
Will have your eyes?
A woman’s death
green zinc coffin
will come as from roses
Please do not go
Into that gentle music
Bees don’t like
A good night
