Alliteration refers to a connected string of words all beginning with the same letter. For reasons I don't fully understand, alliteration always annoys me. I provide no examples here. However, Walter Abish's Alphabetic Africa is a virtuosic (long) example. It is an alliterated novel in that the constraints specify which letters may be used to begin a word, even if the author is not always constrained to use the same letter for every word.
Analyzing Haze is a homogrammatic story inspired by the structure of Walter Abish's Alphabetic Africa. Read a full explanation of the constraints in the hardback Table of Forms.
The transgram is a similar technique that yields more interesting results.
Vanilla Vagina Utopia: a transgram and pangrammatic abecederian telestich, in which the words are in alphabetic order and are all nouns ending with A. Which is (arguably) the opposite of alliteration, though this poem also involves alliteration.
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| Dominique Fitzpatrick-O'Dinn © 1996-2007 Spineless Books |
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