Cutting-up Atlantis (One)

I think that now everything will go on here an identity, is what we really are. in the body, with things and men. it is the whole reality something that we are, I think. that now everything will go on here And yet I know that is always there; live at all. cannot know or share. This voyage is almost it is now (as all we do), as before. As it must. bird of paradise. for good—or I do not There will be always true, and each living thing There were sixty people at present lost in the placards were sent out their prayers drowned by “Othello” and “The Merchant” precincts of The Globe) to the ground? I looked for the past to the ground? (in the Borough Should I ask that tree? for Listen with my ear right by the Study a flower for a sign? This is all new to me. Univac The half of a moon. The sound of feet. Not an individuality I will take it all in and wait That continues, as it live until like a High Mass in Southwark great vault, Underground.

 ___________________________________ 

Cut-up of an original text by Louis Dudek, Atlantis, Delta Canada, Montreal, 1967

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

"Drummer Boy Raga" and Cut-ups

Vehicule Poets at Rare Books and Special Collections, McGill University
giving a group reading on 26 April 2018

Like a collagist, selecting and snipping, Stephen immersed himself in the text, emerged with bits and phrases words, even syllables. Sometimes, his selection was to introduce fragments of what was to come, sometimes a reflection (refraction) of what had just passed. His breaking up the text in this fashion turned the piece in on itself, its meditative aspect. The work was now reaching inward as well as outward. He did not add one original phrase, not one external element, yet his contribution was instructive. In visual terms, he zoomed in on the fabric, the material, offering the work as “object”, built with breaths, words, thoughts. 

                                                    —Tom Konyves on “Drummer Boy Raga: Red Light, Green                                                         Light” (Poetry in Performance, The Muses’ Company, 1982) 

By chance, I just reread Tom’s commentary on my participation in “Drummer Boy Raga: Red Light, Green Light”, a poetry performance we gave at Vehicule Art Gallery, on April 16, 1977. I believe the project was originated and coordinated by Tom Konyves; the performance included John McAuley, Ken Norris, Tom Konyves, Endre Farkas, Opal L. Nations, and Stephen Morrissey. My participation in writing the text amounted to cutting-up what others were writing. Then the cut-ups were assembled and returned to Tom who distributed the new work to the next person. These were my first published cut-ups. Finally, as a group, we performed the completed “Drummer Boy Raga: Red Light, Green Light”. Thinking back, this must also have been our first written group project as the Vehicule Poets; the next group collaboration would be A Real Good Goosin', Talking Poetics, Louis Dudek and The Vehicule Poets (Maker Press, Montreal, 1981). This was an interview or dialogue between Louis Dudek and the seven of us young poets. We were known as the Vehicule Poets because we all hung out and organized poetry readings at Vehicule Art Gallery. Our first group anthology, The Vehicule Poets (Maker Press, Montreal, 1979) wasn’t a collaborative work as such; it was an anthology of our work as individual poets, not work written in collaboration with each other. And now, here is Tom’s text, from above, cut-up: 

Like a collagist, selecting and snipping turned the piece in on itself, its meditative emerged with bits and phrases words, inward as well as outward. he did not add was to introduce fragments of what was element, yet his contribution was instructive (refraction) of what had just passed. His fabric, the material, offering the work as Stephen immersed himself in the text thoughts. even syllables. Sometimes, his selection aspect. The work was now reaching to come, sometimes a reflection. In visual terms, he zoomed in on the breaking up the text in this fashion “object”, built with breaths, words,

Cut-ups, series 1.6

A SEAS

Forward! The march

weariness and anger.

To whom shall I

should I adore? What

hearts shall I break?

what blood tread?

the intractable convict

are always closing; I sought

houses he would have

with his idea I saw the blue

of the country; in the cities

more strength than a saint,

a traveler—and he,

glory and his reason.

nights, without roof, with

a voice gripped my frozen

Still but a child,

on whom the prison doors

the inns and rooming

secrated by his passing;

sky, and the flowery labor

sensed his fatality. He had

more common sense than

alone! the witness of his

On highroads on winter

without clothes, without bread,

_________________________

Cut-up of Arthur Rimbaud

Cut-ups, series 1.5

Let me sleep! Eat the pebbles that one breaks,

At the altars of Churches’ old stones;

Broth run over Gravel of ancient deluge taste,

And mix with and loaves scattered in grey brakes

ON IN HELL

At last, O happiness,

the burden and the desert,

sky the azure that is dark

of pure light. Out of

myself? What beast

clownish and blank as Poly

image is attacked? What

lies should I uphold?

_________________________
Cut of Arthur Rimbaud

Cut-ups, series 1.4

Paul Verlaine, on left, and Arthur Rimbaud.

law— The hard life,
Howling beneath the leaves
with withered fist

The wolf spits out the lovely plumes
And thus no old age, no
Of his feast of fowls:

Like him I am consumed.
forsaken that to any divine
my impulses toward

Let me seethe
Solomon.

Rather steer clear of the rust
brutishness,—to lift the Cedron.
fin’s lid, to sit, to suffocate
dangers: terror is not

O reason, I brushed from the
—Ah! I am so utterly, and I lived—gold spark
image whatsoever, I took on an expression as
possible:

Salads and fruits
O my abnegation,
O Await but the picking;
below, however!

But violets are the food
De profundis, Domine, Of spiders in the thicket.

_________________________
Cut-up of Arthur Rimbaud

Cut-ups, series 1.3

Rimbaud (on right) with Verlaine, 
Paris, 1896

Gospel has gone by!

I am of an inferior race for

shore. Let the towns light

day is done; I’m quitting

my lungs; strange climates

to trample the grass, to

to drink liquors strong

my dear ancestors around

A SEASON

and liberty?
Alas! The Gospel!
Greedily I await God.

all eternity.

Here I am on the Bret

up in the evening. My

Europe. Sea air will burn

will tan my skin. To swim

hunt, and above all to smoke

as boiling metal,—like

their fires.

_________________________
Cut-up of Arthur Rimbaud

Cut-ups, series 1.2

Your white

The cradle

The sparse

This year or next year

Art criticism is as imbecile as Esperanto

Brindisi Goodbye goodbye

I was born in this city

And my son too

I’ve never liked Mascagni

Nor art nor artists

I’ve envied a woman

to be a woman

Bon voyage!

Let me carry you off

You who laugh at red

to the childbearing future

I envy your ease

Ocean liners of factories

At anchor

April 1914

_________________________

Cut-up of Blaise Cendrars

Cut-ups, series 1.1

BOMBAY EXPRESS

Ah! what’s more: They rush out of their cells

red clearing with old courtyard

I can remember They kidnap the young prisoner

land and Christianity. I get into a carriage which

myself in the past. But They leave at top speed

; and even the langue While the guards empty their

I cannot see myself

Some of the guards jump on horses

convicts

__________________________________
Cut-up of Arthur Rimbaud and Blaise Cendrars

The Cut-up Technique

John Cage poem by Stephen Morrissey

The process of making cut-ups is fairly simple. Take a page of someone’s writing—for instance Arthur Rimbaud or Blaise Cendrars—and cut the page into four, eight, ten, or whatever number of pieces one chooses. Then, randomly assemble the cut-up pieces of text by gluing them onto a fresh sheet of paper. Now, you have a new piece of writing by the same author, but changed, the words altered, a new voice speaking through the random assemblage of fragments of their work. The linear writing you began with has been re-visioned in a non-linear way, often producing surprising new phrases that contradict normal rational logic. As a variation on this process, you can take two authors, cut-up their writing, and assemble a new, single, and combined page of, for instance, Rimbaud-Cendrars.

I learned of the cut-up method in William Burroughs and Brion Gysin’s book Minutes to Go that I read in the early 1970s. I was just beginning to read my work in public and the cut-ups made a huge impression on me at the time. Indeed, the writings of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and William Burroughs, and others, spoke to many of us in a personal and relevant way. Writing poetry was our journey and these older writers were our mentors. I also read all of Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin, and other writers that Henry Miller recommended in his The Books in my Life; indeed, that’s where I first heard of Blaise Cendrars and, possibly, J. Krishnamurti. At the time of these early public readings and performances, I was also involved with the writings of John Cage that emphasized silence, randomness, coincidence/synchronicity, and non-linearity in art.

I have always liked several things about making cut-ups: For instance, 1) the physicality (or non-cerebral aspect) of the cut-ups, using scissors and glue to create new writing; 2) the relationship of the cut-ups to making collages, which are really visual cut-ups; 3) I have always been intrigued by the randomness of the cut-ups, allowing a new voice to emerge from the writing; 4) the connection to visual art (painting, film, etc.) interested me; 5) avoiding the imposition of the ego in the writing, always seemed to me one of the objectives I was attempting to achieve in my experimental writing; 6) cut-ups can be performed using several voices, or a room full of voices, or the reading/performance can have several cut-ups read simultaneously.

The cut-ups remind us of a serious ambition in poetry, in sound poetry, in visual poetry, and in printed poetry. In my writing since the cut-ups—writing concerned with redemption and witness—the context has always been living in an existential world in which insight and affirmation of life has been hard-won. The cut-ups affirm life, they show meaning and creativity in randomness and coincidence.

A final note: you can't escape the jester archetype in all of this. The idea of new, intelligible poems coming from the cut-up remains of someone else's poems suggests a supreme act of jesting. Are our poems so slight, or so dense, that a new and possibly significant text can be found after its cut-up pieces are randomly assembled? Is the cut-up up technique also some kind of jest or put-on? Of course, the jest is a part of the process...

SM, 30 October, 2008

Blaise Cendrars Cut Up (four)

Gibet et de la Roue

Paris, 1913.

Avec les gestes piteux et le the oaths of the cardplayers in the

sous la pluie

Bella, Agnès, Catherine et la ne

Et celle, la mère de mon amoucles who paced nervously up and

looked at me as he passed

Il y a des cris de sirène qui me heart tears rise

Là-bas en Mandchourie un mistress…

dans un accouchement and,

Je voudrain depths of a bordello

Je voudrain n’avoir jamais fait

Motley

Like my life

And my life doesn’t keep me a full speed

Shawl

And the whole of Europe see

gold wheels whirling madly along in

universe

______________________________
Cut up of “Prose of the Transsiberian and of Little Jeanne of France”, by Blaise Cendrars

Blaise Cendrars Cut Up (three)

The wings of our seven sins

And all the trains are the devil’s cup and ball

The poultry yard

The modern world

Speed is useless

In the modern world

Distances are too great

And at the end of the trip it's terrible to be a man with a

woman…

We can’t go to Japan

Come to Mexico!

On the escarpments the

Riotous vines

They seem a painter’s

Colors booming like

Rousseau was there

His life was dazzled

At Chita we had a few day’s piano and I had a raging

Five days stopover because of b

We spent it with Monsieur Iae that calm interior the father’s

me his only daughter in daughter who would come each

Then the train took off again.

And amputated limbs dance tulip trees are in bloom

raucous air tresses

Fire was on all the faces in alette and brushes

Idiot fingers rapped on all the ngs

And in the press of fear glance

In all the stations where all the

And I saw

Sleep

I would so have liked to sleep camels

I can identify all the countri more than 500 kilometers

closed it’s all I saw

And I can identify all the train

______________________________ 

Cut up of “Prose of the Transsiberian and of Little Jeanne of France”, by Blaise Cendrars

Cendrars cut-up, original text

Blaise Cendrars Cut Up (two)

An old monk was

Novgorod.

And I, the bad poet who Still, I was a very bad poe

everywhere I couldn’t go to the end.

And also merchants still I was hungry

To go make their fortune And all the days and all

And all the shopwindows glasses

And all the houses and all I should have liked

And all the wheels of cabs and all the streets

pavements those lives

I should have liked to plus turning like whirlwinds over broken

nge them into a furnace of swords

the square

And my hands took fligh The great almonds of the

wings And the honeyed gold of

And those were the last An old monk was reading

Of the very last voyage I was thirsty

And of the sea. And I was deciphering

When, all at once, the pig

I was in Moscow, where too,

with the rustling of albatross flames

And I was not satisfied of the last day

that my eyes turned

Their train left every many dead out there

It was rumored there we rates

One took along a hundred accounts I the bank.

clocks from Blac Malmö filled with tin cans and cans

Another, hatboxes,

Revolution… omen

And the sun was a fierce hire which could also be useful

That burned like live

It was in the time of my And I should have liked

I was scarcely sixteen And tear out all the

And dissolve all those

garments that enrage

I could sense the coming

______________________________
Cut up of “Prose of the Transsiberian and of Little Jeanne of France”, by Blaise Cendrar

Blaise Cendrars Cut Up (one)

o grind up all the bones cathedrals all in white

the bells

all bodies, naked and strange under me the legend of Nizhni Novgorod

me…

of the great red Christ of the Russian letters

eons of the Holy Ghost flew up from

wound adolescence

I had already forgotten my birth

it was war

Love carted away millions of corpses

the last trains leaving

because they weren’t selling any ging to me the legend of Nizhni

going away would have liked to

didn’t want to go anywhere, could go

had enough money

corkscrews

Still another, coffins from I was trying to nourish myself with

of sardines in oil

Then there were many with the bell towers and the stations

Women with crotches for stars

Coffins

They were all patented day morning.

It was rumored there were many dead.

They traveled at reduced boxes of alarm clocks and cuckoo

And they had savings Forest

and an assortment of Sheffield

the women in the cafes and all In Siberia cannon

Hunger cold plague

them and break them And the muddy waters

In all the stations I saw

Nobody could

more tickets

And the soldiers who

stay. . .

______________________________

Cut up of “Prose of the Transsiberian and of Little Jeanne of France”, by Blaise Cendrar