Elliptical

One of Mullen’s literary influences is Oulipo, which stands for Ouvoir de Litterature Potentielle, or Workshop for Potential Literature. Started in 1960 in France by poet Raymond Queneau and mathematician Francois Le Lionnais, Oulipo consists of writers and math thinkers, mostly men, though several women have joined later, interested in systematic ways of writing. Queneau was a former Surrealist, not quite able to embrace the idea of writing through subconscious means. Because he was intrigued by mathematics, he started to see the importance of numbers in writing, such as the number of chapters in a book. He also wrote multiple sonnets with lines that he could rearrange to create new sonnets. As a result, in Oulipo, mathematical games provided writing challenges and inspiration. For example, French poet and Oulipo member Jean Lescure took the idea from math sequencing, now called n+7 in English (s+7 in French), which has authors replacing nouns in a piece of writing with the seventh entries following each one in the dictionary. Out of this movement also came notable works, including Georges Perec’s A Void, which does not contain the letter “e.” Even Dada visual artist Marcel Duchamp, known for his urinal readymade art piece, was intrigued by the group’s work and joined as a member.