this is found materials for collage poems will make, but is already
a collage--from daybook jottings from yesterday sat 21 oct 2000--
collage and montage simple facts of existence--seeing/hearing.
awareness at any given moment--
not linear left to right top to bottom arrangement at all--even
looking out window "before one" say--sudden juxtaposition of lie of life
(bus) cutting across field of tree and house--rearrangement by person
heaving into view--meanwhile sounds of motor engine being worked on,
someone shouting, church bells ringing for Mass, football game going one
from open window and signs on side of bus--person moving into view wearing
sweat shirts with markings, image--
juxtapositions continual as all in movement--one may "cut" it and
edit it simply by moving head slightly--alters "point of view" so so
to speak--let alone the sense of the volumes and directions of sounds--
and those alone but a bare few elements at that instant--one cd go
into quite some presentation of all else involved--tree, traffic light,
trash container with DRUGS ARE TRASH--
and what passing through mind at that moment and sensations of the
body as it stands or sits or moves--
a collage in continual rearrangement--
then attempting to walk (into" the field of vision--quite
startling effects if one continues cutting and pasting--making things
"different", improving the composition say--or 'mixing" the soundtrack--
one danger though have found is when have too swiftly cutting out
advancing truck which marred part of the arrangement, found oneself quite
literally walking in front of it--
vast intrusion of the "concrete" from out the picture plane!
though another good practice is say select street corner or any
old where--and squat down there and make arrangements direct with what
found there, on site--
use of site/sight/cite to make hieroglyph of the marking,
notation, of arrangement in that moment & place, of that moment & place
and later some puzzled passerby surprised to find collage of sand,
feather, pebble, bus ticket, cigarette butt & viewer's own shadow--
participant in the piece--
(and what indeed does this "sign" "signify"--?)
materials below already in simple arrangement, suggesting myriad
further ones--to do with found matrials abundantly presented herein--
from the usual suspects, as per usual:
I loved absurd pictures, fanlights, stage scenery, mountebanks'
backcloths, inn-signs, cheap colored prints; unfashionable literature,
church Latin, pornographic books badly spelt, grandmothers' novels, fairy
stories, little books for children, old operas, empty refrains, simple
rhythms . . .
-----
We left our horse in the shed, and, entering the little unpainted
bar-room, we heard a voice, in a strange, outlandish accent, exclaiming
"Diorama." It was an old man, with a full gray-bearded countenance, and
Mr. Leach exclaimed, "Ah, here's the old Dutchman,"--though, by the way,
he is a German, and travels the country with this diorama in a wagon, and
had recently been at South Adams, and was now returning from Saratoga
Springs. We looked through the glass orifice of his machine, while he
exhibited A SUCCESSION OF THE VERY WORST SCRATCHES AND DAUBINGS THAT CAN
BE IMAGINED, --WORN OUT, TOO, AND FULL OF CRACKS AND WRINKLES, DIMMED WITH
TOBACCO SMOKE, AND EVERY OTHER WISE DILAPIDATED. THERE WERE NONE IN A
LATER FASHION THAN THIRTY YEARS SINCE, EXCEPT SOME FIGURES THAT HAD BEEN
CUT FROM TAILORS' SHOW-BILLS. THERE WERE VIEWS OF CITIES AND EDIFICES IN
EUROPE, OF NAPOLEON'S BATTLES AND NELSON'S SEAFIGHTS, IN THE MIDST OF WHICH
WOULD BE SEEN A GIGANTIC, BROWN, HAIRY HAND (THE HAND OF DESTINY) POINTING
AT THE PRINCIPAL POINTS OF THE CONFLICT, WHILE THE OLD DUTCHMAN EXPLAINED
. . .
. . . When the last picture had been shown, he caused a country
boor, who stood gaping beside the machine, to put his head within it, and
thrust out his tongue. THE HEAD BECOMING GIGANTIC, A SINGULAR EFFECT WAS
PRODUCED.
--------
I dreamed of crusades, voyages of discovery never reported,
unrecorded republics, suppressed religious wars, revolutions in manners,
movements of races and of continents: I BELIEVED IN ALL ENCHANTMENTS.
sections 1 and 3:
Arthur Rimbaud, A SEASON IN HELL, "Ravings II Alchemy of the
Word"
(1873)
section 2 (middle):
Nathaniel Hawthorne, THE AMERICAN NOTEBOOKS
entry for Friday, August 31, 1838
