Long Live Oulipo!

3 AM magazine posted an interview with Frédéric Forte, a French poet who is the youngest member of Oulipo. The conversation is an interesting and all-too-short glimpse into the French poetry scene, as Forte situates the now 50-year old group in the context of today’s writing. He explains the continued relevance of the group by pointing to its lack of a polemical stance, and its focus on opening up formal possibilities:

I would say first that the Oulipo is not a ‘movement’, it’s a group of people, not trying to persuade they’re good and the others are bad, but just working, generations after generations, on the potentialities of literature. This maybe could plainly explain the longevity of the group.

I don’t know if the Oulipo is ‘vital’ for French poetry, maybe it would be pretentious for me, as an Oulipian, to say it. All I know is: it’s alive and it’s part of the thing. The Oulipian logic brings poetry in new, different directions (as others approaches do in their own ways). The important point is to keep poetry as diverse and alive as possible.