Hehe - yeah :-) Good question - hard to say without knowing who was reading what? Hunt was in England, and so probably took a lot of influence from the European avant-garde (surrealism, cubism, dada, et al.). He did illustration work in Der Sturm in the mid-1920s, an avant-garde magazine based in Germany that had been publishing a lot of radical stuff from the mid-1910s onwards. That might have been an influence. And he knew Kurt Schwitters, who published some early sound/concrete poetry around the same time (check out the "Sound Poetry" link above). Hunt was in with the Transition crowd too, also mid-1920s, which grew out of Gertrude Stein's salon in Paris, and her avant-garde poetry, published as early as 1914, a little while before either Hunt or Cummings. I imagine her influence was fairly widespread?
Cummings was in America and his first widely available avant-garde stuff came out around 1925 - so a similar time period - but nothing that quite approached concrete poetry of this nature? I imagine Cummings was probably influenced by the Others crowd, a New York avant-garde poetry magazine which began around 1915, and some of the New York Dada stuff from 1917? And then there's the visual poetry of Agnes Ernst Meyer, among other things, from 291 Magazine, in 1915 (check out the "Concrete Poetry" link above), which could have played a part. Lots of possible points of reference circulating at the time for both of them? That's not to say Cummings might not have also been in the mix for Hunt, but yeah, it's a real soup of avant-garde experimentation throughout the late-1910s and 1920s. All very interesting. :-)
Sea on the Jetty confirms my mental age hahahahahhahaha! I couldn't help but read it out loud! Hope no one heard that! The first one is the contour of a face. See? Poetry is fun!
Haha - of course! So did I :-) I think you'd be cheating yourself out of something pretty special if you didn't ;-) Check out the Kurt Schwitter's Noise Poems linked at the bottom and you can hear me read out some sound poems like this - it is pretty funny! Haha. I love that you saw a face in the first one - looking at the typography of the original (it was very hard to paginate on here!) I don't think it's meant to be (I'll include it in the notes post if you want to see it)? I could be wrong, but I think it's a loving description of a penis - which makes sense when you see some of his queer illustration work. :-) But love the face reading! Realised I forgot the line in the middle too - so have added it now! Lol - long day.
It was more obvious in the email as it showed up as more compact than on the page. Will have a second look... Nah actually I'm good... Face it is. Yeah you can include the face comment if you want.
ooooooooolala!!!!!!!
hehe - you always know the bits to pick out :-)
:)
Fuuuuuuuun. I wonder did Sidney take inspiration from ee Cummings in that first poem?
Hehe - yeah :-) Good question - hard to say without knowing who was reading what? Hunt was in England, and so probably took a lot of influence from the European avant-garde (surrealism, cubism, dada, et al.). He did illustration work in Der Sturm in the mid-1920s, an avant-garde magazine based in Germany that had been publishing a lot of radical stuff from the mid-1910s onwards. That might have been an influence. And he knew Kurt Schwitters, who published some early sound/concrete poetry around the same time (check out the "Sound Poetry" link above). Hunt was in with the Transition crowd too, also mid-1920s, which grew out of Gertrude Stein's salon in Paris, and her avant-garde poetry, published as early as 1914, a little while before either Hunt or Cummings. I imagine her influence was fairly widespread?
Cummings was in America and his first widely available avant-garde stuff came out around 1925 - so a similar time period - but nothing that quite approached concrete poetry of this nature? I imagine Cummings was probably influenced by the Others crowd, a New York avant-garde poetry magazine which began around 1915, and some of the New York Dada stuff from 1917? And then there's the visual poetry of Agnes Ernst Meyer, among other things, from 291 Magazine, in 1915 (check out the "Concrete Poetry" link above), which could have played a part. Lots of possible points of reference circulating at the time for both of them? That's not to say Cummings might not have also been in the mix for Hunt, but yeah, it's a real soup of avant-garde experimentation throughout the late-1910s and 1920s. All very interesting. :-)
-- : Me, Typing This Comment : --
klickklackklockbrrrrrbbklickklackCLONK
This guy was a roar of those special '20's!
😂
Sea on the Jetty confirms my mental age hahahahahhahaha! I couldn't help but read it out loud! Hope no one heard that! The first one is the contour of a face. See? Poetry is fun!
Haha - of course! So did I :-) I think you'd be cheating yourself out of something pretty special if you didn't ;-) Check out the Kurt Schwitter's Noise Poems linked at the bottom and you can hear me read out some sound poems like this - it is pretty funny! Haha. I love that you saw a face in the first one - looking at the typography of the original (it was very hard to paginate on here!) I don't think it's meant to be (I'll include it in the notes post if you want to see it)? I could be wrong, but I think it's a loving description of a penis - which makes sense when you see some of his queer illustration work. :-) But love the face reading! Realised I forgot the line in the middle too - so have added it now! Lol - long day.
It was more obvious in the email as it showed up as more compact than on the page. Will have a second look... Nah actually I'm good... Face it is. Yeah you can include the face comment if you want.
Definitely a face!
😂