"I am not afraid of Art" - Understanding Literary Cubism

I've been reading the poetry of Max Jacob, given to me by fellow poet and friend Carrie Etter - 'I know you.' she said. She was right, I loved the book. I read in the introduction he was a friend of Picasso and explored cubism in poetry. This prompted me to find out more about 'Literary Cubism.' Although I have long loved the poems and writings of Apollinaire, I had not considered cubism until I started this research. Here's some finds from this essay by Pamela A. Genova: The Poetics of Visual Cubism: Guilaume Apollinaire on Pablo Picasso

"Apollinaire counselled his fellow poets and artists to seize and translate the turbulent atmosphere of the new, to accept nothing at face value and to always seek out the unlikely and the unusual.

Apollinaire believed that life was an inherently artistic adventure, and art a primary element in the experience of life, the two elements indivisible

Literary cubism: the exploration in language of the principles of unlikely juxtaposition, immediate spontaneity,  and the reconsideration of the dynamics of the material world.' In this vein, he fashioned unusual linguistic and structural systems." 

Pamela A.Genova, University of Oklahoma.   

The rainbow is bent, the seasons quiver, the crowds push on to death, science undoes and remakes what already exists, while worlds disappear forever from our understanding, our mobile images repeat themselves, or revive their vagueness, and the colours, the odours, and the sounds to which we are sensitive astonish us, then disappear from nature-all to no purpose. 

Guillaume Apollinaire

How do we write cubist poems? 

I'll try and summarise:

Reorganise space, both on the page and in the mind's eye

Be spontaneous and impetuous

Be prepared to be misunderstood, underestimated, and disregarded

Reject fallen idols and cliched forms

Speak in the present the words of the future

Use imagist language

Speak with spontaneity, simultaneity, and the vibrant nature of the concrete world

Cubist poems have a 'fourth dimension', a spiritual quality of the imagination, directly related to the creative process, a subtle perceptual faculty both esoteric and methodical

Perceive in all directions at once, both spatial and temporal, endowing objects with a renewed sense of presence and utility

Play with shape and sound, word and image

"float in the azure of our memories, and partake of divinity, in order to damn the metaphysicians" 

Dance around the incandescent fires of passion, fear, and desire

Surprise: the greatest source of what is new - "Surprise laughs savagely in the purity of light"

The three plastic virtues: Purity, Unity, and Truth

Purity: forget after study

Unity: the relation between a newly created thing and a new creator

Truth: search for it - especially in that of the imagination 


Finally, be multidimensional: imagery, sound, shapes, repetition and colours

Some cubist poets:

MINA LOY - Human Cylinders

PIERRE REVERDY - Clock 

GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE - The Lady 

RENÉ MAGRITTE - The Legs of the Sky

MAX JACOB - Rainbow

GERTRUDE STEIN - A Carafe, that is a Blind Glass