Dadaist Poetry

Welcome to Day 1 of the August Open Write. If you have written with us before, welcome back. If you are joining us for the first time, you are in the kind, capable hands of today’s host, so just read prompt below and then, when you are ready, write in the comment section below. We do ask that if you write that, in the spirit of reciprocity, you respond to three or more writers. To learn more about the Open Write, click here.

Our Host

Wendy Everard teaches in Central New York.  She is the mother to two college-age daughters, and she and her husband, Jim, are soon-to-be empty nesters.  She currently teaches AP Language; Creative Writing; Music, Poetry, and Social Change; and Multicultural Literature to Grades 10-12.  In her spare time, she loves to read, walk, write, draw, listen to music, create curriculum, and garden.

Inspiration 

“When you cut into the present, the future leaks out.” – William S. Burroughs

My summer obsession is Steven Van Zandt’s spectacular website for teachers, TeachRock.  (Yep, that’s me, flexing, by posting a pic with the man, himself, who I met at the launch party for his website!)  I’m using the site to craft my new senior course, “Poetry, Music, and Social Change,” and I would definitely suggest that you check out TeachRock here.

While researching lesson plans, I came across a unit on “Beat Culture and the Grateful Dead.”  Within the extension activities were these instructions for creating a Dadaist poem.

What is Dadaism?  The short answer is that it was an art form in the early 20th century that was a “reaction against the rise of capitalism, bourgeois values, and the horrors of World War I.”  Click here for the source of that description –  a longer explanation and a helpful (short) video.  For an even cooler interpretation of Dadaism, click here!  Then see the instructions below for creating a Dadaist poem.

“One of [Beat writer] William Burroughs’  preferred writing strategies involved the ‘cut-up,’ a creative writing project perhaps first described by 20th Century Romanian poet [and co-founder of Dadaism], Tristan Tzara. Following Tzara’s instructions below, create your own cut-up poem” (TeachRock).

Process

“To make a Dadaist poem:

• Take a newspaper (or magazine).
• 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 are you a writer, infinitely original and endowed with a sensibility that is charming though beyond the understanding of the vulgar” (TeachRock).

(NOTE:  Got some magnetic poetry lying around?  You could alternately use this to choose your words, but it might not be as fun.)

This exercise felt kind of like reading tea leaves to me, and this video, in which Burroughs takes us through his method, only affirmed this feeling!

As always, feel free to follow this prompt as loosely or faithfully as you wish.  You can add words to your poem to make it flow better; use whatever form you wish; make your poem rhyme – or not; or write a poem of your own choosing today, disregarding the prompt entirely (the true spirit of Dadaism!). 

Wendy’s Poem

“Birdwalk”

Learning part-time.
Pressure caring for
and…
and…
your
overwhelmed, Professor?
Kids are leaving home
of psychology:
Happier.
Graduated.
Beaming.
Gen-attack
with a start.
That’s
from
loudened life.
Gripping parents,
therapy years,
Heather Baltimore therapy,
says people
in
the Psychotherapy Daughter.
For every
afterthings
have –
but, instead,
licensed taking.
Like trembling,
Time
Ages
Adults.

Your Turn

Now, scroll to the comment section below to write your own poem. (This is a public space, so you may choose to use only your first name or initials depending on your privacy preferences.) Not ready? That’s okay. Read the poems already posted for more inspiration. Ponder your own throughout the day. Return later. And, if the prompt does not work for you, that is fine. All writing is welcome. Just write something. Also, please be sure to respond to at least three writers. Oh, and a note about drafting: Since we are writing in short bursts, we all understand (and even welcome) the typos and partial poems that remind us we are human and that writing is always becoming. If you’d like to invite other teachers to write with us, tell them to subscribe.