{"id":77,"date":"2016-05-20T14:24:27","date_gmt":"2016-05-20T22:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.annhuang.com\/blog\/?p=77"},"modified":"2017-12-11T12:27:55","modified_gmt":"2017-12-11T20:27:55","slug":"5-techniques-used-by-surrealist-poets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.annhuangpoetry.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/20\/5-techniques-used-by-surrealist-poets\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Techniques Used by Surrealist Poets"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"surrealist<\/a><\/p>\n

Inspired by Dadaism and the writings of Sigmund Freud, Surrealist poets give the imagination and dreams as much precedence as logic and reason. The writers use the unconscious mind to explain rational life. To free the imagination, poets use a variety of techniques that liberate the mind of conscious control.<\/p>\n

Surrealist Poetry Techniques<\/h3>\n

Exquisite corpse game<\/strong>:<\/h4>\n

Writers use games as a way to have fun and investigate their minds when writing Surrealist poetry. Games break traditional thought patterns, allowing thoughts to be more random and ideas to flow more freely.<\/p>\n

In the exquisite corpse game, players take turn writing down words on a piece of paper. After one person writes a set of words based on the rules (e.g., adjective noun \/ adjective verb \/ adjective noun), the individual folds the piece of paper to conceal the writing and passes it to the next person. Leader of the Surrealist movement, Andr\u00e9 Breton, developed the game with his friends, in which they wrote, \u201cThe exquisite corpse will drink the young wine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Palindrome poem<\/strong>:<\/h4>\n

Palindrome poems are visual works of art, creating a mirror image. They masterfully read the same backwards and forwards, as in the following poem by Jerry P. Quinn.<\/p>\n

Unseen Travelers<\/strong><\/p>\n

Spoken Breath
\nCreating flesh and spirit
\nSouls stirring divine dances
\nLeaping, joyful with life
\nEntertaining harmony and grace
\nAngels of myriads and myriads
\nSentinel watchers
\nMerging unseen
\n~Travelers~
\nUnseen merging
\nWatchers, Sentinel
\nMyriads and myriads of angels
\nGrace and harmony entertaining
\nLife with joyful leaping
\nDances divine, stirring souls
\nSpirit and flesh creating
\nBreath spoken.<\/p>\n

Echo poem<\/strong>:<\/h4>\n

In an echo poem, a technique invented by Aur\u00e9lien Dauguet in 1972, one or more people write on a piece of paper divided into two columns. After the first poet writes a line in the left column, the second poet \u201cechoes\u201d by writing a stanza that rhymes or sounds phonetically the same in the right column. Many times the echo is one or two words. An example of an echo poem is Fred Chappell and John Niedzwiecki\u2019s \u201cNarcissus and Echo.\u201d The echoing words create a poem of their own.<\/p>\n

Shall the water not remember \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Ember<\/em>
\nmy hand’s slow gesture, tracing above\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 of<\/em>
\nits mirror my half-imaginary \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 airy<\/em>
\nportrait? My only belonging\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0longing<\/em>
\nis my beauty, which I take \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0ache<\/em>
\naway and then return, as love \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0of<\/em>
\nof teasing playfully the one being \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 unbeing.<\/em>
\nwhose gratitude I treasure \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Is your<\/em>
\nmoves me. I live apart \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 heart<\/em>
\nfrom myself, yet cannot \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0not<\/em>
\nlive apart. In the water’s tone, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0stone?<\/em>
\nthat brilliant silence, a flower \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Hour,<\/em>
\nwhispers my name with such slight \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0light<\/em>
\nmoment, it seems filament of air, \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0fare<\/em>
\nthe world become cloudswell. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0well.<\/em><\/p>\n

Automatism<\/strong>:<\/h4>\n

When Surrealist poets use automatism, or automatic writing, they write without controlling their conscious thoughts. In essence, they write whatever comes to mind. Breton stated that poets should not filter, edit or shape automatic writing because the words should be vivid and raw. The leader of the Surrealist movement used automatism when writing Soluble<\/em> Fish<\/em>:<\/p>\n

The ground beneath my feet is nothing but an enormous unfolded newspaper. Sometimes a photograph comes by; it is a nondescript curiosity, and from the flowers there uniformly rises the smell, the good smell, of printer’s ink. I heard it said in my youth that the smell of hot bread is intolerable to sick people, but I repeat that the flowers smell of printer’s ink. \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Cut-up technique<\/strong>:<\/h4>\n

In the cut-up technique, a writer cuts text printed or written on paper and rearranges the words to create a new work. Latent news is a similar technique in which a writer cuts words or phrases from a newspaper article and quickly rearranges them. Many people unknowingly practice this Surrealist technique with refrigerator magnets that have words printed on them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inspired by Dadaism and the writings of Sigmund Freud, Surrealist poets give the imagination and dreams as much precedence as logic and reason. The writers use the unconscious mind to explain rational life. To free the imagination, poets use a variety of techniques that liberate the mind of conscious control. Surrealist Poetry Techniques Exquisite corpse […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,22,12],"tags":[31,9,5,6,23,13,14,19],"class_list":["post-77","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-experimental-poetry","category-poetry-language","category-surrealist-poetry","tag-ann-huang","tag-poetry-class","tag-poetry-form","tag-poetry-structure","tag-poetry-translation","tag-surrealism","tag-surrealist-poetry","tag-transcendentalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annhuangpoetry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annhuangpoetry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annhuangpoetry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annhuangpoetry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annhuangpoetry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.annhuangpoetry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84,"href":"https:\/\/www.annhuangpoetry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77\/revisions\/84"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annhuangpoetry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annhuangpoetry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annhuangpoetry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}