INSTRUCTIONS FOR MAKING A POEM
Take a newspaper.
Take a pair of scissors.
Choose an article as long as you are planning to make your poem.
Cut out the article.
Then cut out each of the words that make up this article and put them in a bag.
Shake it gently.
Then take out the scraps one after the other in the order in which they left the bag.
Copy conscientiously.
The poem will be like you.
And here you are a writer, infinitely original and endowed with a sensibility that is charming though beyond the understanding of the vulgar.
Tristan Tzara - 1920
Okay Tristan, here goes. . .
Yesterday’s wind
featured the same face
like the good feathers for all starlings
their waterfront not wrong coming.
Birds learn where
they sit
facing the
wind in the column
resting not which way from it.
All the exceptions live there.
No bird of Harwood could reason
like Lynne.
like Lynne.
Blow on the way so they can tell
when from which. Live always
as a lot, says Nelson.
as a lot, says Nelson.
CB 2012
*
on search for ancient Sunday
skies. Key ingredients to clinch
daredevil science. Have ready
Curiosity through descent
a landing inside the life to signs
harbored on Martian Planet.
Mars once performed Red
for an historic crater.
CB 2102
If we understand, after a fashion, does that save us from vulgarity? I enjoyed these, your rewriting of the music. xo
ReplyDeleteI think this exercise goes to show that having a lot of 'ordinary' words helps when it comes to reconstructing the text into a poem. The first poem works better and seems to make more 'sense' because there are lots of basic words to join the nouns together. The second text lacks these smaller words, to some extent, and consequently the second poem appears more abstruse. The opening line, 'rover may pink late' is tricky, because the mind has to turn 'pink' into a verb of some sort. Interesting exercise, all the same!
ReplyDeleteHi Marylinn -- I found his last line rather muddling! It can be read in any number of ways.
ReplyDelete'. . . Charming though beyond the understanding of the vulgar??'
I do love the way you phrase and paraphrase things, Marylinn. You have your own unique way of 'rewriting the music'. Thank you xo
Oh Claire, these made me smile broadly and for a long time!
ReplyDeleteMy favorite lines:
"All the exceptions live there."
and,
"Have ready/Curiosity...."
(Advice to take seriously.)
(I will try this at the first breath of free time!)
xoT.
Oh T! We were on each other's blogs at precisely the same time = without knowing it - and both tapping out messages! Happy synchronicity, my friend! xo
ReplyDeleteCute :)
ReplyDeleteThis is fun! Reminds me, in a way, of writing poems anyway. Putting all your words in a bag (brain) and shaking them around, seeing what comes out when you paste them together.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of my kids rearranging those magnet words on fridges of friends. I like what this says about randomness and intent, voice and reason, meandering feeling of poetry and precision. Cool post - really enjoyed this.
ReplyDeleteDaredevil science -- love that in the context of poetry.
Ah, so this is where the Beat writer, William Burroughs, pinched his "Cut-Up" technique from. Apparently very influential. People like David Bowie writing songs using the cut-up method.
ReplyDeleteHas the twisted but somehow valid logic of a dream.