Cutting-up Atlantis

Cutting-up Atlantis uses excerpts from four texts that all deal, in one way or another, with the lost continent of Atlantis. Each of these texts has been cut-up and the cut-up texts from each of these are included in this new work. The first text that was cut-up are pages from Atlantis, a book length poem by Louis Dudek, published by Delta Press, Montreal, in 1967. Dudek is an important Canadian poet whose vision extended beyond his native country to Europe, to Atlantis, and finally to the infinite. Two important Socratic dialogues, Timaeus and Critias, written around 500 B.C. by Plato, are the oldest historical and literary references to Atlantis. Whether Plato meant these to be read as allegory or as historical fact is not known. Pages chosen randomly from these two dialogues by Plato have also been cut-up and reassembled. The fourth text is taken from Edgar Cayce on Atlantis, written by Cayce’s son Edgar Evans Cayce, and published in 1968. This book offers an overview of Cayce’s psychic readings on Atlantis. From this text I have cut-up quotations by the “sleeping prophet,” Edgar Cayce, that are included in Edgar Evans Cayce’s book; nothing written by Edgar Evans Cayce has been used in Cutting-up Atlantis. In Cutting-up Atlantis, derived from texts by Louis Dudek, Plato, and Edgar Cayce (a more disparate group is difficult to find!), I have created a new text that has something of the feeling of an ancient document that has survived from antiquity. Cut-ups remind me of skimming a text; reading only a fragment of the complete text discovers meaning. Cut-ups, the act of cutting-up and reassembling the text, are a kind of editing without an editor. Cut-ups are also “found texts,” the poetry in them is recreated and revisioned in the cut-up process. Reading the cut-ups, the mind looks for meaning—it looks for consistency, a coherent thesis, and connections between ideas and images—even though there may be, in fact little or no meaning in the cut-up text. Meaning—what is meaningful, what gives meaning and connection to life—can be found even in the randomness and apparent meaninglessness of a cut-up text. Stephen Morrissey Samhain; Guy Fawkes Day, November 5, 2008 Sections One and Two: Cut-up of an original text by Louis Dudek, Atlantis, Delta Canada, Montreal, 1967

Sections Three to Five: Cut-up of an original text, Timaeus, by Plato

Sections Six to Eight: Cut up of an original text, Critias, by Plato Sections Nine and Ten: Cut up of an original text on Atlantis, by Edgar Cayce