A univocalic poem — only the vowel 'a'
for Christian Bök, who took seven years
A wall stands. A wall stands.
What man can last? What man can last?
A hand grasps bars — grasps and clasps,
all that was grand, all that was fast.
A land apart, far and vast,
marsh and sand, a harsh land's past.
Walls warp what was vast — what was?
Walls warp that grand dark tract, at last.
A bard chants (a mantra's art):
"walls can't halt what sparks can start."
A spark's flash: all dams crack and pass.
Walls fall. Man stands. Man stands apart.
This is a univocalic poem: every vowel in every word is 'a'. No e, i, o, u, or y.
The vocabulary collapses to Saxon monosyllables and Old English roots. "Imprisonment" is impossible — too many forbidden vowels. What remains: walls, bars, land, dark, harsh. Something primal, almost pre-linguistic.
The repetition isn't stylistic — it's necessity. When your palette shrinks to one color, rhythm becomes everything.
After Christian Bök, who wrote five chapters of Eunoia — each using only one vowel — and took seven years to finish. He said: "Poetry has to be reinvented if it is going to remain relevant."
The wall IS the vowel constraint. Breaking through IS the poem.