Ottos mops

ottos mops [Eng: Otto's pug] is a poem by Austrian poet Ernst Jandl. It is thought to have been written on the 20th of November, 1963, and was first published in 1970 in Jandl's volume Der künstliche Baum [Eng: the artificial tree]. The poem is made up of simple sentences of two to four words that contain exclusively the vowel "o". It tells the story of a short episode in the life of a dog and its owner: after Otto sends his badly behaved pug away, he begins to miss it and calls it back. The reaction of the returning pug is, however, not quite what is expected: it vomits. Ottos mops is one of Jandl's most famous humorous poems. The author himself labelled it a 'Sprechgedicht': a poem that creates its particular effect best when read aloud. It is frequently used in German schools as an example of concrete poetry, and has inspired several imitations by other poets, and by children.