Potential: 'possible as opposed to actual; existing in a latent state, capable of coming into being' (OED)
oulipo, the Workshop for Potential Literature, presents potential literature as procedures and structures capable of producing literary works. It established a distinction between 'created creations' and 'creations that create', and provided a forum for the latter via discussions and publication.
Potential Literature has a productive capability, whether quantitatively small or practically limitless. Methods may be replicated, or be read in more than one way, thus containing another potentiality within them.
Once a literary method is created, what matters most is not the quality of the initial literary work, but the potential future works it inspires and explorations within that method. | 
