Week 3: Poets, Performance, and Identity

Breton was a French writer and founder of surrealism.  Despite the fact that many people believe that Breton coined the term “surrealism,” it was actually coined by Apollinaire.  As the founder of surrealism, he took the liberty of deciding who was and was not a surrealist artist by denouncing them in his writing.  Because Breton was so involved in the direction of the surrealism movement, he was in contact with and recruited many surrealist artists, such as Salvador Dali, Philippe Soupault, Louis Aragon, Paul Éluard, René Crevel, Michel Leiris, Benjamin Péret, Antonin Artaud, and Robert Desnos.

Breton’s poem “Freedom of Love” is a poem all about his wife.  His descriptions of his wife are fitting with surrealist ideas of creating an element of surprise with “unexpected juxtapositions and the use of non sequiturs” (newworldencyclopedia.org).  The descriptions in this poem are extremely surreal if taken at face value because how could anyone have “eyelashes of strokes of a child’s writing.”  This line, as well as every other line, in the poem can be interpreted many different ways depending on the reader’s background knowledge.  The visual art created by reading this poem is quite similar to Dali or Picasso’s paintings, where the viewer gets beautifully distorted perspective of the object at hand. 

In “Less Time,” Breton contemplates mortality and the value of living a full life.  Surrealism is evident in this poem within the first few lines. 

“Less time than it takes to say it, less tears than it takes to die; I've taken account of everything, there you have it. I've made a census of the stones, they are as numerous as my fingers and some others; I've distributed some pamphlets to the plants, but not all were willing to accept them.” (Excerpt from Breton's "Less Time")

Breton compares stones (an object that would be extremely difficult to place a number on) to his fingers (which should be a total of 10) to create an illusion that he is truly able to quantify stones as he considers death and who will miss him.  Breton had experienced rejection by various people throughout his life, so I wonder if the plants that he talks about in this excerpt are those who rejected his works (pamphlets).  The metaphor of his rejecters as plants seems fitting because they simply need to grow in his works to be able to accept him.

Project 1: Explained

This poem was originally a poem that I found by typing in “poems that don’t make sense” into a Google search.  After reading through some, I found one that talked about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky – I was sold!  I had to remove their names because I used the N+7 website to distort the whole poem.  Each stanza was entered into the website individually and decided which changes I liked the most.  After changing each stanza, I reread the poem line by line.  If I didn’t like a line or specific word in a line, I reentered that into the N+7 website to find a different way to say it.  For some words, I used a thesaurus to find a similar word and then entered that word into the website to generate new words.  The title was generated using a random phrase generator. 

Overall, I like the poem that I came up with using these methods.  I think it is random and funny.

Project 1: Generative Systems and SPAM texts

Beauty is Cataplexed in Contemplation

I saw a glasshouse sketchbook in the trees
blowing bugbears into the slaughterhouse.
They drifted off as far as I could see.
Woman, I could give it a try.

I saw a one-legged maniac kicking a bandit.
He kicked it all weekend dressing back the stylist,
not once did he even fall.
It was purely neophyte.

I saw two naked minerals trapped in a bracket
trying to get out with all their might.
Their bollards painted white, even their coconuts.
Oh, what a funny silence.

I saw a stagehand shelf his talent.
He told me the subeditor fancied to be a rattlesnake.
To shave it off he did not fail, from bushy to skittle.
Only a foreigner would do something like that.

I saw a coward hang-glider swathing the ballad.
There was a luminary in the airplane as she ruffled his half-brother,
but he didn't neglect because he used to be a tomcat.
They skipped off they did, this lovely palliative.

I see a love of negligee stylists when I do my thoroughfare.
It makes me feel great;
Sometimes I dash, sometimes I sit-in.
It is a hemline of a love bidder than a belly straight.

Week 2: Beyond Realism

THE NUMBER

WERE IT TO EXIST

other than as a scattered hallucination of the dying

WERE IT TO BEGIN AND END           
rising only to be denied and closed off when revealed
at last                                       
by some thinly spread profusion            
               WERE IT TO BE COUNTED 

evidence of the sum however small                      
        WERE IT TO ILLUMINATE

CHANCE             

 "A Throw of the Dice Never Will Abolish Chance"

By: Stéphane Mallarmé

This poem is about a ship captain who is sinking on his boat in the middle of a horrendous storm, while attempting to find some mystic number that would save him from his inevitable death.  The number is unattainable, so Mallarmé seems to questioning why this sailor (or people in general) is looking for something to save them when it is determined by a higher power.  CHANCE is the main idea of this poem.  If by chance the sailor figures out the number, what saves him from the storm or his half-sank boat? 

Mallarmé’s poem is written in a form that can cause the reader some confusion about where to go next, but it is beautifully written so that however it is read some meaning will be gathered. The poem’s structure was an innovative way to write poetry because it defied the set forms of prose or lyrical poetry by utilizing the white space as a way to deepen the meaning of the poem.  In my selected passage, the captain and his boat are sinking, but it isn’t simply straight down, he is tossed back and forth by the waves and white space suggests a lull in the waves.  The typography evokes kind of STRONGER and softer waves crashing against the boat, while dragging it under.

“The Throw of a Dice” is an appropriate poem considering the social and political climate in and around France in the late 1800s.  The Dada movement sought to refine the “rational” thinking of the world.  This passage shows that Mallarmé disagreed with the rationalists around him because it defies the mentality that there may be something to save a person by saying that it is left all to chance.  Everything is not pre-decided and people cannot possibly calculate all outcomes of their decisions, so there much of life is left to destiny or fate.  The government made poor decisions which led to artists in that time period to explore various outlooks on life.

Week 1: Background

Art has a limited impact on the political and cultural world.  Robert Hughes in the film claimed that art would be impactful if people would open their hearts and minds to the meaning of the art.  Considering the confidence and assertiveness he had when stating that, it seems like it could be true; however, people’s viewpoints are bias based on their political and cultural ideals.  I believe that art can influence people who are not involved in government because government officials have a job to do and most prefer not to make radical movements. 

Dada, an anti-rationalist movement, emerged after the world was torn apart by WWI because artists were seeking a way to express themselves after the war.  The tremendous loss of life as a result of “rational” governments’ actions stirred feelings of hatred or animosity towards the government.  An anti-rational movement seems to rebel against the narcissism of power.  This movement gets under people's skin and shocks them - it provides a different way to view the world around them.

Alfred Jarry’s play, Ubu Rex, is a precursor to Dada theater because it is written in a way that defies authority, which is irrational to some in the general public and government.  Ubu Rex mocks high society and the defined boxes of each stage in life.  The language of this play satirizes the language of people in authority.  Pa Ubu has no redeeming qualities to him, which portrays distain for power hungry individuals. 

Jarry developed this play from the “low lifes” of Shakespeare; however, unlike Shakespeare, there is no contrast between upper and lower classes.  This essentially shows that the classes are one in the same because they act the same – each are power hungry.  This play challenges tradition because it goes against the class system built into society.