Kurt Schwitters - Noise Poems (1926-27)
Forgotten Poems #38
—: Noise Poems :—
Noise Poem Nr. 1 naa kaa naa kaa doo naa kaa too doo too mpiff tilff too tllll naa kaa naa kaa rritt aaaaa Noise Poem Nr. 2 boo ker zel prrrr joo jüü joo kor rrg nnnnnnnnnn mm mm mm mm haaaa
Schwitters, Kurt (1887-1948)
P: Der Sturm (1919), Merz (1923+), Ray (1926-27); etc.
Born in Hanover, in Germany, and lived in Norway for a time. Studied at the Dresden Academy. Worked across numerous mediums—painting, sculpture, sound, poetry, typography—in many modern styles, including expressionism, constructivism, surrealism, Dada, etc.
Published in Der Sturm (1919), edited the avant-garde magazine Merz (1923-32), which included work by artists like Jean Arp, El Lissitzsky, Katte Steinitz, and Theo van Doesberg, and contributed to the English magazine Ray (1926-27), edited by artist and poet Sidney Hunt.
Apparently, Schwitter’s wrote a “key for reading the sound poems” (and presumably the ‘noise poems’) in the 1920s, and there is an English translation, but it seems to be pretty hard to get a hold of, unfortunately.
A couple more forgotten poems this week, plus I have started recording myself reading the poems out loud, and adding them as a bonus. It’s a nice way to reconnect voice and word together, and so it seemed fitting that today’s forgotten poems belong to the word of sound poetry. I will slowly go back and record readings for the earlier posts as well, and so far have done Loureine Aber, Pauline B. Barrington, and Leon Srabian. More coming soon!
I never know what’s going to come out when I sit down to do these response poems. Writing poems in the moment has always been a part of my poetry process. Yes, I go back and edit, and change bits, and so on. Of course. And that can take a long time, depending on the poem. But the aim for me is to get as close as possible in the moment, regardless of how wildly I may fail to achieve this. An attempt to use language in such a way that very quickly, very few options are possible. Once so many words are on the page, there’s only so many ways of combining them, to find ourselves at one of so many beginends . . .
R i d d l e #1 for Kurt Schwitters (by Dick Whyte) e b g o d a i n S o l u t i o n s: be god be a god begin a god begin in a god be a god in a god beginning— and in a god, begin a going in, a bang!— began, and end and bend a god and and and, and, etc.
Forgotten Poets Presents:
Forgotten Poems, a living anthology of obscure and out-of-print poetry from the late-1800s and early-1900s. Explore the archives:
I "sang" it right away. Beautiful, powerful, no need of real words! Thank you for sharing!
Outstanding!!!