Cut-Up Poetry Ignites Your Imagination
Whilst researching the creative mindfulness exercise ‘Cut-Up Poetry’ I discovered a rather fascinating history. It's a process favoured by artists, poets and songwriters alike, including Kurt Cobain and one of my heroes David Bowie. Read on to learn more about its history knowing you're in good company if you decide to try this very mindful creative technique.
The History of Cut-Up Poetry
Cut-up poetry is the literary take on collage. I discovered an exciting and rich history while researching the cut-up poetry technique.
American writer William Burroughs is often attributed to the cut-up poetry technique. Although he gave the method its voice, it was his friend and collaborator, the British artist Brion Gysin who first introduced the idea to Burroughs in the 1950s.
William Burroughs explains:
The method is simple. Here is one way to do it. Take a page. Like this page. Now cut down the middle and cross the middle. You have four sections: 1 2 3 4 … one two three four. Now rearrange the sections placing section four with section one and section two with section three. And you have a new page. Sometimes it says much the same thing. Sometimes something quite different–(cutting up political speeches is an interesting exercise)–in any case you will find that it says something and something quite definite. Take any poet or writer you fancy. Heresay, or poems you have read over many times. The words have lost meaning and life through years of repetition. Now take the poem and type out selected passages. Fill a page with excerpts. Now cut the page. You have a new poem. As many poems as you like.
Burroughs began applying the technique not just to text but to other media, too, including words recorded on tape. To amuse, surprise and question.
Fancy Some Cut-Up Words?
As an aside, I highly recommend you check out work by Cassetteboy, who has brilliantly adopted the cut-up method to spoken words. Cassetteboy Vs Joe Wicks | Hello 2021 particularly made me giggle!
Back to your cut-up poetry history lesson...
It was the founder of the art movement Dada (a precursor to surrealism), Tristan Tzara, in the 1920s, who first introduced the idea of the cut-up poetry technique.
At a Surrealist rally in Paris, he proposed writing a poem by taking words out of a hat. He went on to outline this method in the ‘the Dada Manifesto On Feeble and Bitter Love':
Take a newspaper.
Take some scissors.
Choose from this paper an article of the length you want to make your poem.
Cut out the article.
Next, carefully cut out each of the words that make 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.
However, the idea of the cut-up poem could date back even further. Austin Kleon has written a useful potted history on the cut-up poetry technique. Kleon discovered Lewis Carroll's ‘Poeta Fit, Non-Nascitur’ (a reversal of the Latin adage, “poeta nascitur non-fit”, or, "a poet is born, not made") dating back to 1883.
Asking in the first line, "how shall I be a poet?" this lovely poem (which I highly recommend you read in full) goes on to say:
For first you write a sentence,
And then you chop it small;
Then mix the bits, and sort them out
Just as they chance to fall:
The order of the phrases makes
No difference at all.
Ignite Your Imagination
In an interview a very young David Bowie explained:
“What I’ve used it for, more than anything else, is igniting anything that might be in my imagination”
In a later interview for the BBC documentary 'Cracked Actor’, Alan Yentob interviews a much older Bowie, who says he increasingly uses the technique. Expanding on his cut-up process, Bowie says:
Cut-Up Poetry is for Everyone
“If you put three of four disassociated ideas together and created awkward relationships with them, the unconscious intelligence that comes from those pairings, it really is quite startling sometimes; quite provocative.”
Whether you're a songwriter, artist or just someone looking for something easy yet absorbingly creative, I would definitely try the cut-up poetry technique. On your own, with friends and definitely with your kids. There's no need to call yourself an artist.
Williams Burroughs said "Cuts ups are for everyone," just as Tzara noted that "poetry is for everyone".
A Western Tarot?
Bowie likened the technique to a Western Tarot":
“It seems to it would predict things about the future or tell me a lot about the past. ”
Could this be true? Perhaps and perhaps not. But William Burroughs
also talked about the methods as a means of predicting the future.
In an interview, he recalls a story of cutting up an article by Paul Getty. From this text, Burroughs created the line "it's a bad thing to sue your own father". This line was not in the original text and were words Burroughs put together from the cutouts.
Spookily a year later, one of Getty's sons did sue him! Coincidence? Perhaps. But I love Burroughs thought:
“When you cut into the present, the future leaks out.”
The Benefits of Poetry
As a vehicle of expression, poetry, in general, is a great way to explore feelings and memories buried in the subconscious and identify how they may relate to existing life circumstances. Poetry can:
Be used to express emotions that might otherwise be difficult to demonstrate verbally.
Encourage self-reflection, exploration, self-awareness and help adults and children make sense of their world.
Help individuals redefine current and past events in their lives by opening up new ways of perceiving reality.
Importantly, poetry speaks to people and helps them see that many of their experiences shared by other people too. (Source)
Further Resources
Check out the BBC documentary ‘Cutting Up The Cut Up’, available on iPlayer.
Swap the scroll today and try the Cut-Up Poetry creative mindfulness exercise. Or if you’re a fan of visual collage, try ‘Facetime: A Self Portrait Collage’ creative mindfulness exercise.
Remember: Cut-up poetry and all creative mindfulness exercises are about expression, discovery and process. Not perfection - it doesn’t exist!
Have an inspired day
Georgie x