In order to reinvent language and use it more efficiently in the modern age of Art, we must reorder words and thus change their connotations. We can rearrange sentences blindly, or we can do it purposely and purposively. That is not to say that random rearrangement cannot LEAD to purposeful rearrangement. After all, how random is random? Burroughs spent years doing cut-ups with Brion Gysin in order to separate words from their denotations and create new connotations for words. Take for instance this cut-up from “The Ticket That Exploded”:
Hassan I Sabbah: “Last round over-Remember I was the ship gives no flesh identity-lips fading-silence to say good bye-“ See the action, B.J.? This Hassan I Sabbah works for Naval Intelligence and…Are you listening B.J.?”
Many new word associations, metaphors and connotations can be derived from this paragraph. Take for instance the phrase “flesh identity”. How often has that phrase been used? Yet so much of who we are is determined by what we look like in our minds. I also like the idea of “lips fading” and “silence to say good bye”. Who has ever described lips as “fading” besides Burroughs? Yet an expression on the lips can certainly have the appearance of fading sometimes.
Traditional English professors may not like the idea of abandoning grammar all together. Yet what is grammar but a set of contrived rules developed in order to communicate better? These rules have grown stale and predictable. In order to communicate MORE effectively in the modern age of Art, one must abandon these rules and say NEW THINGS. I made this cut-up the other day:
Their investing success create a merry message Faccone began tracking and Federal Trade Commission remember the father who had died At Home in a House of Horrors Not that the details of your upbring-Brooklynites who knew Ms. Streisand back when remi-worships to fill the gaps for ALMI’s rent from American Girl. Continued on Page 4 Flashing Lights and Thrashing Music in a Search for Order and Chaos Shop from your iPad with the SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS Music Business/Management (MB/M) Department Chair Don F.T.C. Said to throw up a thicket of mid Sentimental Job Business Day stopped when Chachi married controversy, having grow free, if you call right now. And example, something vulgar into a About U.S. Schools HERE Returns and exchanges: To return any item, follow the four months, led lower Wyatt contributed reporting. through the Doll Hospital. The perfect message is free of charge for both To Prepare For Lawsuit Vs. Google NOW PLAYING IF YOU CAN’T BEAT THE SYSTEM…CHANGE IT. say, the F.T.C. staff recommend and activities, plus our newest products. we do not see these develop to a laugh. Jones shook his head. Be bold and go for the victory or be Billy Martin use it was too uncomfortable help. The roads were dusty and for some time, at least lower than In general, the report praised added, “Indeed, we see positive proper human-animal interaction policy measures being taken in it was beginning a program Tyson said auditors would program in global enter Department Chair who founded the Janek Gwisdala ’00, and John Mayer
By placing words generally not placed next to each other NEXT TO EACH OTHER, new associations and connotations are created. Take for instance the father “who had died at home in a house of horrors,”, or shopping “from your iPad with the seven psychopaths”. Can commercialism be described as a kind of psychosis? What vulnerabilities made the home a “house of horrors” for the father who died and HOW did they kill him? New ideas and characters can be created by random cut-ups which can then be implemented in more traditional narrative or verse. Don’t worry, grammarians, I don’t plan to give up on the rules right away. Even Burroughs didn’t do that.
Additionally, words that exist as exclusively one type of speech can be utilized effectively, perhaps even more effectively, as another type of speech, and the connotation would be completely different. Take for instance the word “live.” Both the denotations and connotations associated with the word “live” are different that those associated with the word “life”. So let’s say something about “live” as if it were a noun. I performed this set of experiments with verbs the other day:
Live is wish fight dagger world penetrable.
Wear is strong word misty right palpable.
Might would paint bird tight wood passable.
Could is aim true darn right palatable.
I probably got a little ahead of myself by experimenting with both multiple verbs, multiple nouns and multiple adjectives simultaneously, but the idea is there. I may have to go back and think about each word individually. Experiments like this free up the mind to think about words, ideas and symbols in a different away. Comparing “live” to a dagger is especially poignant to me, having suffered from depression for years and being able to understand how “live” could be like a “dagger”. This may not be apparent to someone without the illness, but using the word “live” instead of “life” makes this symbol more clear. Both words have a sharp sound. The connotations I have with “live” as opposed to “life” concern existing fiercely and vivaciously. These connotations immediately pop into my mind when I think of “live” by itself. By further comparing it to “dagger”, I exacerbate this connotation.
You might say “This is all very well and good, but how can this experiment become an actual poem?” Just like this: Start by inserting words (in “incorrect” states of speech) with certain connotations into sentences as different sets of speech. Do this sparsely, with rather traditional sounding verse. Look at E.E. Cummings for example:
anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn’t he danced his did.
Sounds rather normal doesn’t it? Cummings is simply using words’ different connotations and associations in order to utilize them as different parts of speech.
The tradition exists for a reason, and completely abandoning it would be as illogical as simply abandoning law because one wants to do whatever one wants. The next order of business is to invert or “pervert” traditional form to make it new. This can be done while maintaining a sense of rhythm and overall aesthetic. Take this section of a poem I wrote today:
Traced a line so curvy as to be a sword,
(lightness, lightness, cure as light)
When I understood it was naught but the holy word,
(heavy, heavy, spur the fight)
Fighting for the endless utter epigrams
(matchless, matchless in the sky)
Lifting off the ground the roots of emblem sand
(darkness, darkness, roots of lies).
The lines not in parentheses are all iambic pentameter. The lines in parentheses are trochaic. Both follow a pattern of end-rhymes and work as parallel themes, creating a synthesis of rhythm, pattern and idea.
To put all this together is the end-goal. I’m still on the path….
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