Numerous constraints are at play in Georges Perec’s collection of sonnets héterogrammatiques Métaux. Like the form from which it takes a portion of its title, the heterogrammatic sonnet consists of fourteen lines; in addition to this, each line contains fourteen letters.
Twelve letters – a, e, i, o, u, d, l, m, n, r, s, t, - appear once each in every line. The remaining two letters of each line are filled with the titular letter of each poem in the collection (b, c, f, g, h, p, v) and a variant joker.
In the poem F Perec adds a further constraint of constructing a large X in the poem’s grid, formed from intersecting diagonal lines of m’s and u’s.
This is an anagrammatic translation, from French to English, that adheres to the numerous constraints of the original.