We Are Not Responsible

“We Are Not Responsible” is a parody of airline announcements originally published as a prose poem in one paragraph with no lineation. Later reprints break it into 21 lines and five stanzas. It does not follow a rhyme scheme or formal meter structure, but is crafted around replacing words and phrases within instructions that are familiar to people who have been in American airports.

Mullen is deeply influenced by the 1960s Oulipo poetry group. She was part of the creation of Noulipo, a 2005 conference dedicated to continuing the poetics of constraint of the Oulipo movement (Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics p. 288). While many Oulipo constraints are mathematical, the replacement format used in “We Are Not Responsible” can be considered a kind of constraint outside of traditional forms of poetry. Going outside poetic traditions is also emblematic of the Language (or L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E) movement of poetry from the 1970s and 80s. Airline announcements are not usually considered poetic; they are not like the form of a sonnet.