So, what poetry did you find in this morning's paper?

[Lauren Hynde]

In the 1920s, Tristan Tzara offered to create a poem on the spot by pulling words at random from a hat. Chaos ensued. Dadaists rioted in the streets of Paris, blood flowed red in the Seine, the nihilistic revolution reached its peak. Many good men were lost. André Breton eventually had to expel Tzara from the movement.

In the 1950s, painter and writer Brion Gysin developed the cut-up method after accidentally discovering it. He had placed layers of newspapers as a matt to protect a tabletop from being scratched while he cut papers with a razor blade. Upon cutting through the newspapers, Gysin noticed that the sliced layers offered interesting juxtapositions. He began deliberately cutting newspaper articles into sections, which he randomly rearranged. The result was devastating: unedited and unchanged cut-ups started emerging as coherent and meaningful prose.

The cobbled streets of Paris were once again at risk. Gysin rushed to 9, Rue Git-le-Coeur, in the Latin Quarter, and introduced writer William S. Burroughs to the technique, and all hell broke loose. The two applied the technique to printed media and audio recordings, in an effort to decode the material's implicit content, hypothesizing that such a technique could be used to discover the true meaning of a given text. Burroughs also suggested cut-ups may be effective as a form of divination, when he said, "Perhaps events are pre-written and pre-recorded, and when you cut word lines, the future leaks out." He saw T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" as a proto-cut-up.

Before he could be stopped, Burroughs continued to spread this madness by teaching the cut-up technique to Genesis P-Orridge in 1971, as a method for "altering reality". Burroughs' explanation was that everything is recorded, and if it is recorded, then it can be edited.​

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go through your favourite newspaper (on-line editions will do as well) and find the secret poetry lying within. Rearrange today's reality, and turn the world into a poetry-filled madhouse.

 

[bogusbrig]

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go through your favourite paper (on-line editions will do as well) and find the secret poetry lying within. Rearrange today's reality, and turn the world into a poetry-filled madhouse.

Didn't French philosophers come to a similar conclusion by reading a text's sub-text and then called it deconstruction? Only they used that often over estimated and much over used nonsense mill, called French cultural intellectualism.

I've got a collection of Edwin Morgan's cut outs, though he called it concrete poetry, being as interested in the visual aspect as much as the text, which also got rid of the pretentiousness often given to the process.

The French seem to have difficulty enjoying anything that doesn't have an intellectual base, even if that base is just pseudo-intellectual.

It might pass an empty 15 minutes quite entertainingly.

 

[annaswirls]

Good idea Lauren.

I had this idea before, but modified for Literotica
for those sexy minded folks, can you find poetry
Right HERE

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I went to the International Herald Tribune site, searched "erotica" and found this hidden in the first hit the search engine returned. It is semi-random - I printed the article, cut it up into hundreds of individual lines, and started picking them at random and in order, rejecting only those that made no sense when added to the previous. The only exception was the line that starts with Tropez, for obvious reasons.

Blame it on Nicole Kidman

Blame it on Nicole Kidman, stretching
and fit together into a heart shape and a
black-with-pink packaging add to the
carpet lipstick pink, the wallpaper
that majors in pink, looks rosy
where the walls are pale green, the
groups wanting to buy the company and
a tongue-in-cheek message that girly
audience figures soared as high as the
company's celebration of sensuality.

Madison Square Garden in New York
existed in Paris, or Milan or Saint-
Tropez. But it was just a common
Oriental boudoir come a second store in
400 years -- and whether the corset's
at the risqué window displays that he
shop designed to offer the seduction with
a racy, lacy little thing, ribbon-tied
opposite a violin maker who so blushed
colors like pimento red with turquoise.

New headquarters give the game away,
silhouette sculpted into flirty dresses,
scantily clad models on angels' wings
by Westwood, wear perky pink nurse's
blandishments to wholesale the clothes
hoping to turn saucy little things into
Valentino's ode to the corset -- a
sense of glamour, of luxury, of intimacy,
words "Agent Provocateur" written in
vividly colored tulle, frilly garter belts--

The customers? Men, no doubt.​

At that point, I thought it better to stop. lol.

 

[annaswirls]

oh this is perfect!

the ending was classic.

I went to the International Herald Tribune site, searched "erotica" and found this hidden in the first hit the search engine returned. It is semi-random - I printed the article, cut it up into hundreds of individual lines, and started picking them at random and in order, rejecting only those that made no sense when added to the previous. The only exception was the line that starts with Tropez, for obvious reasons.

Blame it on Nicole Kidman

Blame it on Nicole Kidman, stretching
and fit together into a heart shape and a
black-with-pink packaging add to the
carpet lipstick pink, the wallpaper
that majors in pink, looks rosy
where the walls are pale green, the
groups wanting to buy the company and
a tongue-in-cheek message that girly
audience figures soared as high as the
company's celebration of sensuality.

Madison Square Garden in New York
existed in Paris, or Milan or Saint-
Tropez. But it was just a common
Oriental boudoir come a second store in
400 years -- and whether the corset's
at the risqué window displays that he
shop designed to offer the seduction with
a racy, lacy little thing, ribbon-tied
opposite a violin maker who so blushed
colors like pimento red with turquoise.

New headquarters give the game away,
silhouette sculpted into flirty dresses,
scantily clad models on angels' wings
by Westwood, wear perky pink nurse's
blandishments to wholesale the clothes
hoping to turn saucy little things into
Valentino's ode to the corset -- a
sense of glamour, of luxury, of intimacy,
words "Agent Provocateur" written in
vividly colored tulle, frilly garter belts--

The customers? Men, no doubt.​

At that point, I thought it better to stop. lol.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

oh this is perfect!

the ending was classic.

Thanks. Where is yours?

 

[annaswirls]

Thanks. Where is yours?

ah have to find the article first,

I just got my hair cut
and a toe ring

 

[wildsweetone]

In the 1920s, Tristan Tzara offered to create a poem on the spot by pulling words at random from a hat. Chaos ensued. Dadaists rioted in the streets of Paris, blood flowed red in the Seine, the nihilistic revolution reached its peak. Many good men were lost. André Breton eventually had to expel Tzara from the movement.

In the 1950s, painter and writer Brion Gysin developed the cut-up method after accidentally discovering it. He had placed layers of newspapers as a matt to protect a tabletop from being scratched while he cut papers with a razor blade. Upon cutting through the newspapers, Gysin noticed that the sliced layers offered interesting juxtapositions. He began deliberately cutting newspaper articles into sections, which he randomly rearranged. The result was devastating: unedited and unchanged cut-ups started emerging as coherent and meaningful prose.

The cobbled streets of Paris were once again at risk. Gysin rushed to 9, Rue Git-le-Coeur, in the Latin Quarter, and introduced writer William S. Burroughs to the technique, and all hell broke loose. The two applied the technique to printed media and audio recordings, in an effort to decode the material's implicit content, hypothesizing that such a technique could be used to discover the true meaning of a given text. Burroughs also suggested cut-ups may be effective as a form of divination, when he said, "Perhaps events are pre-written and pre-recorded, and when you cut word lines, the future leaks out." He saw T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" as a proto-cut-up.

Before he could be stopped, Burroughs continued to spread this madness by teaching the cut-up technique to Genesis P-Orridge in 1971, as a method for "altering reality". Burroughs' explanation was that everything is recorded, and if it is recorded, then it can be edited.​

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go through your favourite newspaper (on-line editions will do as well) and find the secret poetry lying within. Rearrange today's reality, and turn the world into a poetry-filled madhouse.

this is kinda weird. i watched a documentary recently that was based on people doing something 'similar' with the bible. they had some kind of computer program that searched for random phrases and specific words within certain perametres and came up with what they believed were beyond coincidences for world catastrophies that have taken place since the stories of the bible were written.

sorry, it was unrelated to the task at hand, but it just reminded me of my thoughts at the time of seeing the documentary... anyone can find anything if they look hard enough.

[/random thought]

 

[Lauren Hynde]

this is kinda weird. i watched a documentary recently that was based on people doing something 'similar' with the bible. they had some kind of computer program that searched for random phrases and specific words within certain perametres and came up with what they believed were beyond coincidences for world catastrophies that have taken place since the stories of the bible were written.

sorry, it was unrelated to the task at hand, but it just reminded me of my thoughts at the time of seeing the documentary... anyone can find anything if they look hard enough.

[/random thought]

In Burroughs' defence, he was probably drugged out of his mind at the time. The concept is still fascinating, though - like Michelangelo discovering Moses trapped in a block of marble.

 

[wildsweetone]

now that's what i mean about random.

if he was trapped would he be looking so serene?

is this the same concept as 'found poetry'?

 

[Lauren Hynde]

if he was trapped would he be looking so serene?

He was waiting.

is this the same concept as 'found poetry'?

Yes, pretty much. Same family of things, at least.

 

[wildsweetone]

I went to the International Herald Tribune site, searched "erotica" and found this hidden in the first hit the search engine returned. It is semi-random - I printed the article, cut it up into hundreds of individual lines, and started picking them at random and in order, rejecting only those that made no sense when added to the previous. The only exception was the line that starts with Tropez, for obvious reasons.

Blame it on Nicole Kidman

Blame it on Nicole Kidman, stretching
and fit together into a heart shape and a
black-with-pink packaging add to the
carpet lipstick pink, the wallpaper
that majors in pink, looks rosy
where the walls are pale green, the
groups wanting to buy the company and
a tongue-in-cheek message that girly
audience figures soared as high as the
company's celebration of sensuality.

Madison Square Garden in New York
existed in Paris, or Milan or Saint-
Tropez. But it was just a common
Oriental boudoir come a second store in
400 years -- and whether the corset's
at the risqué window displays that he
shop designed to offer the seduction with
a racy, lacy little thing, ribbon-tied
opposite a violin maker who so blushed
colors like pimento red with turquoise.

New headquarters give the game away,
silhouette sculpted into flirty dresses,
scantily clad models on angels' wings
by Westwood, wear perky pink nurse's
blandishments to wholesale the clothes
hoping to turn saucy little things into
Valentino's ode to the corset -- a
sense of glamour, of luxury, of intimacy,
words "Agent Provocateur" written in
vividly colored tulle, frilly garter belts--

The customers? Men, no doubt.​

At that point, I thought it better to stop. lol.

did you change any words or just the punctuation?

i'm looking at about 50 lines here and am thinking i should just grab a poetry book and cut that up instead. lol

 

[wildsweetone]

oh yeah, not to mention some nice little breeze upset several and now i can't tell which was the original side of the news item. lol

 

[wildsweetone]

(an article from a local newspaper. The piece was titled 'Graffiti cruel response to underpass art work'.)



scenes in bright colours
for future generations
have been painted by the
community in graffiti prone
low-energy society in
the need for stronger anti-
sustainable roadside
present their half-finished
murals from graffiti, covering
them with a surface from
the Stillwater Toilets walls.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

did you change any words or just the punctuation?

I changed only some (but very little) line-end punctuation.

 

[bluerains]

Mostly I read the headlines on yahoo or msn...and all I can see this mornin..is
WILMA....

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Mostly I read the headlines on yahoo or msn...and all I can see this mornin..is
WILMA....

Well, look for the poetry in it. It is there.

 

[CharleyH]

Ok, so I was looking at clippings since you posted this challenge, and I decided to go against the grain a bit here. In doing some research on something I was writing for work, I came across some letters written by the Marquis de Sade. He's truly the dullest author I have ever experienced, but I love French intellectuals and authors (sorry BogusBrig – pseudo hardly fits them ) Anyhow, I recalled a little trivia about how fairy tales developed and it reminded me of a brilliant film director, Paolo Passolini and an incredible film I wrote a thesis on in U called "Salo – 100 days of Sodom" (it was a while ago) anyhow, I wondered if I could take this prison letter, de Sade's Grande Lettre written in 1781, combine it with both a definition of fairy tales and the story of beauty and the beast and actually have it make sense in a Passolin kind of way LOL.

Hardly random in that sense, but I have always believed that nothing is random, but rather and especially art, is chosen. What I mean is that if I am a director of a documentary film, even with no narration, I choose where to put my camera. Even an avant-gardist like Stan Brakhage chooses what to show in editing. Poets also, choose their subjects.

My method is three texts, broken up and chosen as randomly as is possible but in alternating order from definition to Letter by de Sade and to the tale of Beauty and the Beast to create (and I will end when I feel it is good conclusion) … and my first hand in the bag choice is my title:

I Know What a Fairy Tale is

There you have her happy occupation
which was certainly not nearly so splendid as those she was used to in the beast's palace
How the same story is slightly different each time.
The prison requires their little victims
There were dances, and coloured lights, and music and pretty dresses,
Once removed from oral tradition.
Ever so, let her have her vengeance. I grant it
and wax candles in diamond and ruby candlesticks were beginning to light.
Part of the world's body.
"Either kill me or take me as I am, because I'll be damned if I ever change!"
The noise of the beast's footsteps was heard approaching.
I will state clearly that fairy tales do not have to be about fairies.
You give me too much proofs that my sentence is fixed for me to doubt it,
"I wish to go back to my palace and see my Beast again!"
Folktales are not necessarily fairy tales.
There is, you will admit, the much greater risk of the fatal excess of despair
when I feared I was too late to save you.
What is a fairy tale, anyway?
Ought she scorn the first and most important of all its rule
IE. Do unto others.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Charley, that's even better than I could have hoped for. Thank you.

 

[wildsweetone]

you know, i have a heck of a job finding 'poetry' in news items, it comes out too stilted for my liking - i'm probably not looking hard enough, but, i have found that cutting out words and re-arranging them seems to set my mind ticking to writing a poem, so it's a handy tool. thanks Lauren.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

you know, i have a heck of a job finding 'poetry' in news items, it comes out too stilted for my liking - i'm probably not looking hard enough, but, i have found that cutting out words and re-arranging them seems to set my mind ticking to writing a poem, so it's a handy tool. thanks Lauren.

I just finished cleaning my desk. I had literally hundreds of tiny little strips of paper everywhere, as if I'd been shreading documents. The whole experience was oddly liberating, and I can see why Burroughs thought it so interesting. I will probably continue using this technique occasionally in the future!

 

[wildsweetone]

i wasn't going to mention how liberating i felt shredding the news also, it completely removes the impact of sensationalism. lol

i can't wait to get hold of other paper!

 

[Lauren Hynde]

shredding the news

Rearranging reality, if you please.