Lipogram

A Lipogram is a text that purposefully excludes a particular letter of the alphabet. The lipogram can be reapplied multiple times (exclude more than one letter) or to different units of language. When the lipogram technique is reapplied on a different scale to create a poem which purposefully excludes a certain word, you have a Liponym. A poem deliberately excluding words a particular number of letters in length is a Liponol.

The Lipogram is, according to Perec, "The oldest systematic artifice of western literature." The lipogram has a long history which is explicated in an essay by Perec, anthologized in the book Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature. In 1939, an American author named Ernest Vincent Wright published Gadsby: A Novel of Over 50,000 Words Without Using the Letter “E”. In 1969, Perec completed Las Disparitions, a novel without the letter E. In 1994, Gilbert Adair translated this novel into English as A Void. The translation also does not contain the letter E. Think about that.

Excluding multiple letters, as with a text written using a limited alphabet, is considered a Polylipogram. Also see Univocalic.

Source

Oulipo. The Lipogram is, according to Perec,

Examples

• Georges Perec's La Disparition (1969), translated by Gilbert Adair into English as A Void (1995): a novel excluding the letter E
• Ernest Vincent Wright's Gadsby (1939): a novel exluding the letter e
• Nick Montfort's Upper Typewriter Row

Mary Had a Lipogram
by A. Ross Eckler

mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow and everywhere that mary went the lamb was sure to go; he followed her to school one day that was against the rule it made the children laugh and play to see a lamb in school mary had a little lamb with fleece a pale white hue and everywhere that mary went the lamb kept her in view to academe he went with her illegal and quite rare it made the children laugh and play to view a lamb in there polly owned one little sheep its fleece shone white like snow every region where polly went the sheep did surely go he followed her to school one time which broke the rigid rule the children frolicked in their room to see the sheep in school mary owned a little lamb its fleece was pale as snow and every place its mistress went it certainly would go it followed mary to class one day it broke a rigid law it made some students giggle aloud a lamb in class all saw mary had a pygmy lamb his fleece was pale as snow and every place where mary walked her lamb did also go he came inside her classroom once which broke a rigid rule how children all did laugh and play on seeing a lamb in school mary had a tiny lamb its wool was pallid as snow and any spot that mary did walk this lamb would always go this lamb did follow mary to school although against a law how girls and boys did laugh and play that lamb in class all saw

Works that use this form

• Birthday 29
• Into Tilting Ruins
• Newspoem 12 April 1998: La Bamba
• Newspoem 20 June 1999: Disappearing Cities
• Newspoem 23 March 1998: Mayor Giuliani Outlaws Painting, Arrests Artists
• Nothing
• Quips
• That Stupid Happy Birthday Party Song
• The Poor Get More Poor
• Vanity

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