Adam Sparks
Chris Pappas
ENC 1102
December 10, 2017
An Ephemeral Account of Cut-Up Poetry “Cut-Up” by definition, means divided into pieces by cutting. (Random House, Inc) In poetry, it is a rarely used form of writing. This method is used by taking a completely written section of text and separating it into pieces with very little or single words on each piece. The resulting pieces are then rearranged into a new text. Cut-up writing is often difficult or at times incomprehensible and anyone who can interpret or understand it, deserves to be recognized. In an essence, Cut-up is very similar to visual art, in that, only the artist (or in the case of poetry, the writer) knows what the true meaning behind the piece is about. The first recognized use of this writing style was in 1920 when a Frenchman Tristan Tzara, co-founder of the Dadaist movement and a poet, challenged to create a poem by pulling random words out of a hat. (Engstrom) For example: Prenez un journal./Prenez des cisnaux./Choisissez dans ce journal (translation, Take a …show more content…
He routinely stretched the limits of language by placing words out of their ordinary contexts. For example, he would use nouns in place of verbs. Recently, researchers at the University of Liverpool conducted experiments to analyze the effects of this type of word usage on the brain. They collected electroencephalogram responses while subjects read selected Shakespearean excerpts containing examples of this unfamiliar or inappropriate word usage. They found that the subject's brains got unusually excited while trying to work out the intended meaning of these special examples. As professor Philip Davis explains: "By throwing odd words into seemingly normal sentences, Shakespeare surprises the brain and catches it off guard in a manner that produces a sudden burst of activity - a sense of drama created out of the simplest of
Chris Pappas
ENC 1102
December 10, 2017
An Ephemeral Account of Cut-Up Poetry “Cut-Up” by definition, means divided into pieces by cutting. (Random House, Inc) In poetry, it is a rarely used form of writing. This method is used by taking a completely written section of text and separating it into pieces with very little or single words on each piece. The resulting pieces are then rearranged into a new text. Cut-up writing is often difficult or at times incomprehensible and anyone who can interpret or understand it, deserves to be recognized. In an essence, Cut-up is very similar to visual art, in that, only the artist (or in the case of poetry, the writer) knows what the true meaning behind the piece is about. The first recognized use of this writing style was in 1920 when a Frenchman Tristan Tzara, co-founder of the Dadaist movement and a poet, challenged to create a poem by pulling random words out of a hat. (Engstrom) For example: Prenez un journal./Prenez des cisnaux./Choisissez dans ce journal (translation, Take a …show more content…
He routinely stretched the limits of language by placing words out of their ordinary contexts. For example, he would use nouns in place of verbs. Recently, researchers at the University of Liverpool conducted experiments to analyze the effects of this type of word usage on the brain. They collected electroencephalogram responses while subjects read selected Shakespearean excerpts containing examples of this unfamiliar or inappropriate word usage. They found that the subject's brains got unusually excited while trying to work out the intended meaning of these special examples. As professor Philip Davis explains: "By throwing odd words into seemingly normal sentences, Shakespeare surprises the brain and catches it off guard in a manner that produces a sudden burst of activity - a sense of drama created out of the simplest of