Theme of Reading: DADA Poetry
II - The Sound Poem
Read the following four poems and answer the accompanying
questions:
"I have invented a new genre of poems, Verse ohne Worte, (poems without words) or Lautgedichte (sound poems), in which the balance of the vowels is weighed and distributed solely according to the values of the beginning sequence. I gave a reading of the first one of these poems this evening. I had made myself a special costume for it. My legs were in a cylinder of shiny blue cardboard, which came up to my hips so that I looked like an obelisk... I also wore a high, blue-and-white-striped witch doctor's hat."Read Ball's poem "Karawane" (German for "caravan") aloud, but keep in mind that the text, untranslatable into English, was written with the German sound system in mind.
2. Given the fact that Ball's poem "Karawane"
is without words, it is reasonable to conclude that it conveys no conventional
meaning. Compare Ball's and Tzara's techniques for making a poem.
How are their methods and products similar and different? What are
they destroying respectively in their poems? What are they creating
with their poems?
3. Tzara's poem "Toto-Vaca" is a literal rendering of a Maori song. (See the Encyclopedia Britannica for a brief overview of Maori literature.) Read the following English translation of Tzara's transcription:
Tota Waka
| Kiwi cries the bird
Kiwi Moho cries the bird Moho Tieke cries the bird Tieke only a belly rises into the air rises into the air continue your road rises into the air here's the second year Kauaea here is the catcher of men Kauaea make room and drag him Kauaea drag where Kauaea Ah the root the root of Tou Heh the wind drag further raging wind drag further the root the root of the Tou |
So push, Rimo
Kauaea go on Totara Kauaea go on Pukatea Kauaea give me the Tou Kauaea give me the Maro Kauaea stretch stretch (the hauling rope) Kauaea my belly Kauaea kihi, e hah, e pipi, e tata, e apitia HA together ha me the rope ha me the rope ha me the spear me the silex-child me the child of the Manuka-oar |
I am I am
a long procession dead is the thing a long procession goes on gliding goes on gliding to sink you to sink you brandish the axe Kauaea only a rooster
translation in: Tristan Tzara, "Poèmes Nègres," trans. Pierre Joris, alcheringa 2.1 (1976): 113 |
Considering the fact that Tzara possessed an "excellent
grasp and deep knowledge...of anthropological work of his time" (Joris
76), why do you think Tzara decided to perform and publish the Maori poem
untranslated?
4. Look carefully at Lacroix's poem (page
59) and read it aloud. Do you recognize any of the words or sounds?
Explain. How does her poem differ from Tzara's "Toto-vaca"?
Might one argue that the two poems have very different origins?
5. On July 14, 1916, Dada Zurich organized
a soirée centered on African song. Hugo Ball played drums
while others like Tzara recited poems. Much later, Tzara admitted
his admiration for African poetry in a short manifesto-like, quasi-poetic
essay entitled "A Note on Poetry": "Poetry lives first of all for the functions
of dance, religion, music and work" (Joris 76). Given his declaration
about poetry, why do you think he took such a strong interest in African
poetry? Why not old European poetry? Read the four poems published
under the title "Negro Songs" (pages 145-147) and consider whether the
poems' content and/or form suggest an answer.
6. The original English translator of Tzara's
poems writes, "It is...at times difficult to make sure when/if Tzara 'invented'
parts or whole poems in the dadaist mode." Compare Ball's poem "Karawane"
(page 60-61) with Tzara's poem "Zanzibar" (page 145). Where does
Tzara diverge from Ball's poetic method? Which parts of Tzara's poem
might be invented by Tzara himself and which might, in your opinion, originate
from a Zanzibar song? Why this ambiguity?
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