A brief experiment in cutting up poetry. I wondered what would happen if I tried to patch together an Edmund Spenser poem using William Shakespeare’s words: if I cut out words from Shakespeare’s Sonnets, published in print by Thomas Thorpe in 1609, and used these to recompose a Spenser sonnet, published in print by William Ponsonby in 1595. Would I learn anything?
Actually, to the older IT-trained eye, the cut pages from the back resemble not so much a tower block at night as an 80-column punched card, from the days when even computer data was paper-based. I doubt there's much creative mileage in running a sheet through a reader though, assuming you could even find one, although it might be a way of revisiting your "Pins through paper" adventure.
Fantastic. Seems to me as a coexistence of map and territory, which potentially could move back and forth (is Shakespeare the map, is Spenser the territory?).
But the first thing came to mind, was the way Tristan Tzara instructed how to make a Dadaist poem (1920):
• 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 are you a writer, infinitely original and endowed with a sensibility that is charming though beyond the understanding of the vulgar.
Actually, to the older IT-trained eye, the cut pages from the back resemble not so much a tower block at night as an 80-column punched card, from the days when even computer data was paper-based. I doubt there's much creative mileage in running a sheet through a reader though, assuming you could even find one, although it might be a way of revisiting your "Pins through paper" adventure.
Mike
Fantastic. Seems to me as a coexistence of map and territory, which potentially could move back and forth (is Shakespeare the map, is Spenser the territory?).
But the first thing came to mind, was the way Tristan Tzara instructed how to make a Dadaist poem (1920):
• 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 are you a writer, infinitely original and endowed with a sensibility that is charming though beyond the understanding of the vulgar.