Lunchtime Speaker: Tim James

At lunch, Tim James spoke about his travels in Africa. He went to Senegal and Gambia with limited resources yet was able to enjoy it to the fullest. From what he said, there is a lot of connection between colonialism, and what Tim saw on his trip. The infrastructure in the countries were bad, as there were no roads or bridges. France and Britain colonizing those countries clearly did not do much to affect the infrastructure, but did have other effects. The language of Senegal remained French even after independence. He also mentioned that you have to go through Paris when traveling somewhere from some african countries. This was very interesting to me and shows that France still has some effect on Senegal, or the colonizer still has some control over the formerly colonized, in general, even years after its independence.

Tim James's Talk

Yesterday at lunch, I went to Martin to see Tim James talk. He spoke about his voyage to West Africa over the summer. What he said was fascinating. He spoke a little about colonization.He visited Senegal, a previous French colony, and Gambia, a previous British colony. Senegal forms a backwards C around Gambia. Tim said that the the fastest way to get across Senegal is to go through Gambia. He needed a separate VISA to get through Gambia. Without it, he would have had to drive all the way around. One thing I thought was particularly interesting was that there were no bridges across the Gambia River. They had to use fairies instead. Being a big fan of food, I was intrigued when he said that some of the food he had at some patisseries were up there with those of Paris. When I think of good patisseries, I think of Paris and France, not West Africa. I guess West Africa was more foreign to me, and I knew very little about it. It was also interesting when Tim said that most flights to Senegal went through it's previous colonizer, France. And how most flight to the Gambia went through it's previous colonizer, England. Why is this? So that the old colonizers can still make a profit? Or does it involve language? I learned so much from this talk. I knew very little about West Africa, and now feel I have slightly better knowledge about it.

Lunchtime Speaker: Tim James

During lunch today, Tim James talked about his experiences traveling around west Africa. He talked a lot about the problem of transportation, and how the major cities are SO crowded, but there are few highways or bridges. He also talked about the effects of colonialism by the French and British in these places. This relates to what we were learning, of course, because we studied colonialism, but it was also very interesting to see the results of colonialism after several centuries have passed. This is something we didn't really look into when we studied it.

For example, the language in Senegal (colonized by France) remained French, even when surrounding places spoke English or another African dialect. I thought it was interesting that places so close to Senegal spoke an entirely different language like English or another African dialect. It was also strange how, because of colonialism, when traveling to and from Senegal by plane, you have to first fly through Paris. I don't really know why this is the case, and Tim James didn't say, but it definitely gives France more control over the people entering and leaving their colony, which is what anyone would want.

I also found it interesting, and inspiring, that although the conditions in west Africa are so harsh, the people who live there still laugh, have fun and are seemingly happy. At least this is the impression I got from the presentation. Many of us would complain about having to cram 20 people in the back of a van, but for the people that live there, this is their way of life, and they aren't complaining.

Dadaism and Me

Dadaism was a very interesting and odd phenomenon that was started in Switzerland. What is so surprising about this is that it was started in Switzerland, a country that remained neutral despite the surroundings going on around it. Dadaists were known for their arts, visual and musical, including poetry. A Dadaist poem can be made from a newspaper article. My Dadaist poem follows.

Guard instead said of Pistons,
That know facetiously in It
Jackson helped times get rebounds
The and ligament that walk
Instead Rodman in played total
Be All-Star the that row

A Dadaist requires little to no work to create whereas other poetry requires long hours of work at times. Other than the last line, my poem made no sense because I row, and it would be nice to be an all star rower, if there is such a thing. Hopefully this is a prediction of the future.

The word dada is French for hobby horse. Dadaism is rather playful like a hobbyhorse as there are not strict rules and regulations. It seems a lot more lighthearted. They say it is a coincidence that it happened during World War I probably because the Swiss weren’t involved in the great war. However there are connections between Dadaism and the great war. Dadaism is the opposite of the kind of things that were going on during the war. The war was very serious, and tough for everyone involved with it. However Dadaism was almost like a joke. The reason it has a connection is because the Swiss were not involved with the war so it was only fitting that it was started in France. The Swiss had a lot more freedom, time, and morale, whereas the other countries were beat up from the war. However, Robby brings up an interesting point in his post. Dadaism has its own kind of destruction, that of words. In the war there was destruction of people and places, and objects, but in Dadaism there was a destruction of the conventional way to do poetry, writing, and art.

My Dadaist Poem

The idea of Dadaism is cool but weird at the same time. I decided to try it out for myself! I made a Dadaist poem from a random article in a magazine, using these very simple instructions:

TO MAKE A DADAIST POEM:
Take some newspaper.
Take some scissors.
Choose from this paper an article of the length you want to make you poem.
Cut out the article.
Next carefully cut out each of the words that makes up this article and put them all in a bag.
Shake Gently.
Next take out each cutting one after the other.
Copy conscientiously in the order in which they left the bag.
The poem will resemble you.
And there you are – an infinitely original author of charming sensibility, even though unappreciated by the vulgar herd.

My Dadaist Poem

Can simple self you sacrifice?
In true hair beauty ponytail prom story,
Easy, able, formal should show looks who worry.
That sweep off brilliant makeup,

Have content, says superpretty.
Polished of this wear be you overdone accessories,
Though made meltdown accoutrements whose ton is too featured,
Dance won’t feel getting your girl.

Yet headband you prom,
Gossip even if prom makeup created.
And if you’re a heart’s according,
May normally style affair you.

And remember sort are regularly mid seconds,
To prom designer look don’t a crystal but about a hairstyle.
As if your doesn’t have,
You the hair, says your face.

Personal don’t artist girl and aren’t,
On was 30 mean your on for to of you’ll be a.

I expected this all to be gibberish, but it actually makes some sort of sense. Some lines you might even call poetic! “If you’re a heart’s according,” or “Look don’t a crystal but about a hairstyle.” There’s even some alliteration: “Simple self you sacrifice.” Weird!
Does this poem resemble me? Maybe. It’s definitely girly. But then again, the article I picked (randomly) was from Teen Vogue about how to get ready before prom, so I guess that was to be expected. I added punctuation in certain places and broke it up into lines and stanzas so it would be easier to read, but other than that I didn’t cheat! This was exactly how I pulled the words out of the bag! The last line is sort of gibberish, because I think the shorter words fell to the bottom of the bag.
I don’t know if a true Dadaist would analyze their poem, but I’m not going to try and discover the deeper meaning from it. But I can see how a Dadaist could call this art, and then not feel any attachment to it. Seeing the final result after having fun creating the poem is interesting, but not very entertaining for too long. It’s not like I slaved over making this poem for hours, trying to find the perfect rhyme scheme and rhythm. It’s kind of refreshing to make a poem that is completely effortless and meaningless at first glance. I guess it’s the Dadaist philosophy to be able to appreciate a completely random assortment of words. It’s fun! I recommend making your own Dadaist poem!

Dada - Sound Poems

In class, we briefly studied the absurdity of dada works, but I was really interested in dada works of the time and what they told us about the vanguards of the movement and, more generally, the spirit of the time. Dada "happened" to coincide with World War I, and after looking at some of the prominent sound poems at the time, it's become more clear why.

One of Dada poetry was the sound poem. These poems were not composed or ordinary words chained together to form an instantly cohesive idea. Rather, common words are cast aside, and sound poets instead use phonetic sounds to convey the poem's meaning through the syntax of these invented words and their natural flow. These poems were mainly intended to be performed during live readings, not written word. Kurt Schwitters, a leader of the movement, stated about dada poetry, "The reader himself has to work seriously to become a genuine reader. Thus, it is work rather than questions or mindless criticism which will improve the reader's receptive capacities." Below are audio recordings of these sound poems so that you can judge for yourself whether these poems are utter trash or a transcendent, revolutionary form of literature.

Hugo Ball
Karawane

Kurt Schwitters
Ursonate

Raoul Hausmann
fmsbw

From a certain perspective, these poems are indulgent works by pretentious writers of the time, but if you can accept them for what they are, they can become a somewhat compelling form of literature. These poems really force you to pay attention to the phonetics of poetry, and the performance becomes similar to acting in that it requires precise voice inflections that can determine the tone, and to an extent, the "meaning" of the piece. When you listen to the poems being performed, it is possible to envision, at least partially, what their creators intended to convey.

When you look at sound poems and Dada in the frame of a timeline, there's a viable relationship between Dada and the Great War. This was the most horrifying war that had ever been seen, both in size - Europe was completely divided and America with other countries were also participants - and magnitude - trenches, gassing, PTSD, mass land destruction, total war. Whether the connection is direct or indirect, it is undeniable that the events and aftermath of World War I mirror the development of Dada. Dada is basically the destruction of words and clear thought. Words and sounds are fragmented and replaced together frantically. Poems do not immediately make sense. After this terrible of a war, should anything make sense? After death in the masses, this seems to be a natural way to react. The effects of the war's destruction can be seen in the deconstruction of language that sprung from the dada movement's sound poems.

Surrealism - Automatic Writing

As Andre Breton states in his Surrealist Manifesto, Surrealism is "pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation." In other words, surrealism is the expression of the subconscious, so much so that everyday thought and reason is not able to tamper with it.

The surrealists had a certain number of exercises that helped aspiring surrealists bring forward the "real functioning of thought." These includes cutting up phrases and words from newspapers and rearranging them into new patterns. They would also write detailed instructions of how to do something that doesn't commonly need instructions. An example of this would be "How to Operate the Human Heart." Of course, exquisite corpse, the most well-known, involves multiple people. Commonly, everyone starts with a piece of paper and writes an article and an adjective. Then the paper is passed to one side. Without looking at the previous article and adjective, write a noun, then pass it again. The exercise continues in this manner with a verb, and article + adjective, and finally another noun. Although no one sees the previous words, there is supposed to be a strange correlation between the words, and the sentence formed may become inspiration for a story idea.

I tried to do an activity called automatic writing. Essentially, it involves writing down whatever ideas come to your mind as soon as they arrive without censoring anything for three minutes. The point is to maintain a constant flow from your subconscious so that nothing can be affected by your conscious mind. Then, I cut out stray words (haha, they're all stray words), broke up lines, and ended up with a very strange poem. Really, it was weird. I don't remember what I was thinking, and I feel like I was choosing words because they were words and they happened to be in my mind, not because of their meaning. Any semi-coherent pieces of thought continued for a short time and then jumped to something else completely unrelated. Maybe I was tired and a little delirious, but maybe it was my actual functioning of thought. That might be a bit disturbing.

Fruitless champagne bottles

Fragments cantering stringently

Sally Ride tiled floor

Pools of its cream

Against the whale knife

Wailing

More than kissing children

At Saturday church

Abandoned to sand, sleet

Minestrone packets into the latches

Silicone and sized

There is none

There is clamor