Week 4: Cut-Up

Hello All,

This was the second experiment that I did for week 4. This seemed like a much deeper kind of constrained chance, if that makes any sense. First, it required more creativity from me, as in the acrostic I had to pick out a sentence from the page with the first letter corresponding with no real reason to make it fit together. Here I had to be more selective. This is where I really started to notice how found poetry works together. There is frequently an undertone to a collection of texts, almost like something--a message, a theme...--is running throughout it. Exploring this has brought me closer to spirituality, actually, because it makes me see clearly what I've always thought is true--we're all connected to something, something that is hidden unless you actively seek to find it. That's Sarah Davis' version of the spirtuality she believes in. I haven't looked it up to see if it goes along with any religion(s).

Anyway!

Here is this constraint:

§ General cut-ups:  Write a poem composed entirely of phrases lifted from other sources.  Use one source for a poem and then many; try different types of sources: literary, historical, magazines, advertisements, manuals, dictionaries, instructions, travelogues, etc.  See cut-up engines listed just above

I took phrases from the pages of the Daily Pennsylvanian, Penn's student newspaper. This doesn't exactly speak to me, but it was an experience, and a fairly easy exercise to repeat. I expect that I will return and make more of these.

-Untitled-

Next came the heartbreaker.
“Feeling randy? Are you married? Is this your wife?”
The Chinese government has said yes.
The announcement signaled the end of anti-government protests that lasted 18 days.
What a difference a week can make.
This, however, was neither an ordinary marriage nor an ordinary wedding.
School of Medicine professor Kyong-Mi Chang opened the event by explaining Hepatitis B and urging students to get the vaccine.
The event featured performing arts groups and various workshops on aspects of Chinese culture.
Both participants and guests found the benefit event to be not only educational, but rewarding as well.
Though audience members had various reasons for attending the event, most agreed it was a success.
Allen added that President Barack Obama’s administration handled the situation perfectly—contrary to recent criticism by Republicans such as former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty

Week 4: Acrostic Chance

Week 4 and I'm now fully immersed in "experimental" writing. These exercises were more constrained than usual, or at least it felt like that when I was getting the end result, but I wonder if that's just because of the mediums I chose.

§ Acrostic chance:  Pick a book at random and use title as acrostic key phrase.  For each letter of key phrase go to page number in book that corresponds (a=1, z=26) and copy as first line of poem from the first word that begins with that letter to end of line or sentence.  Continue through all key letters, leaving stanza breaks to mark each new key word.  Variations include using author's name as code for reading through her or his work, using your own or friend's name, picking different kinds of books for this process, devising alternative acrostic procedures.Or use the web Mac Low diastic engine.
My commentary at the time:


"These exercises were very fun, especially the acrostic chance. It just seemed to work out really well, and I was happy with it. I was skeptical that it would work out at all because I doubted such a heavy theory book (Film Theory and Criticism) would have anything remotely poetic (whatever that is) in it. However, this section of the book is about "film language," so most of the sentences/topics relate in some way to expression and visual interpretation and the feelings that are brought up. For the first exercise I was determined to get different sentences out of each sentence on the dictionary page, so it lacked coherency. I decided to work against that and put in a few sentences as a refrain ("It is its basic method") to ground it a bit."

One of the things I have been working at these days is fooling around with refrains. I like how they work at their best, and throughout the rest of the semester's work you will see this come back.

Here we go:

Book=Film Theory and Criticism
(6, 9, 12, 13-->FILM
20, 8, 5, 15, 18, 25-->THEORY
1,14, 4-->AND
3, 15, 9, 20, 9, 3, 9, 19-->CRITICISM

Poem:
“The traces of the narrator’s action may seem to be effaced by the system as the suture theorists suggest but, in Browne’s opinion, such an effort can only be the result of a more general rhetoric.” (6=F)
“Its object is the showing of the development of the scene in relief, as it were, by guiding the attention of the spectator now to one, now to the other separate element.” (9=I)
“Leit-motif (reiteration of theme). Often it is interesting for the scenarit especially to emphasize the basic theme of the scenario.” (12=L)
“It is a weird and wonderful feeling to write a booklet about something that does not in fact exist.” (13=M)
“That corresponds to Pudovkin’s view.” (20=T)
“His action is recorded separately.” (8=H)
“Essential to Dayan’s system, which relates to classical narrative cinema as verbal langue does to literature, is ideologically charged.” (5=E)
[could not find anything with “O” or anything close to it.” (15=0)
“[this] representation of an object in the actual (absolute) proportions proper to it is, of course, merely a tribute to orthodox formal logic, a subordination to the inviolable order of things.” (18=R)
[two pictures with no corresponding letters] (25=Y)
“And, more generally, by what procedures does film generate meaning?” (1=A)
“Nevertheless the principle of montage may be considered to be an element of Japanese representational culture.”(14=N)
“Harman, however, criticizes the basic concept of the code, which Metz and Wollen share.” (4=D)
“Cinema is a two-dimensional art that creates the illusion of a third dimension through its “walk around” capability.” (3=C)
[long list of phrases that start with “a” or “t.” Nothing related to “r.” (15=R)
“It is its basic method.” (9=I)
“That corresponds to Pudovkin’s view.”
(20=T)“It is its basic method.” (9=I)
“Cinema lacks the double articulation characteristic of natural language.”
(3=C)“It is its basic method.” (9=I)“So it is in this instance.” (19=S)
[Nothing close to “m” anywhere] (13=M)