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August 10, 2007

The Theatre of Semantic Poetry

Many many years ago, Monty introduced me to the work of Stefan Themerson, and Bayamus in particular. It’s a surreal novel: Bayamus has a dilemma whereby he has had a head transplant with an infertile businessman who wants children. Now the child has arrived they get into a discussion as to whose child it really is.

Anyway, buy it, read, be amazed. In his wanderings Bayamus goes to the Theatre of Semantic Poetry. This always struck me as an amazing place, and indeed I wrote to Stefan Themerson to ask if I could use his concept, and he acceded, delighted, at the end of his career, to be an inspiration to someone starting theirs.

I revived one of my semantic poems for the Maximalism show last November, as it was once more relevant.

A means to prevent collision with the ground.

Usually having four legs
and a rest for the back.
It holds physical properties
within three dimensions:
of height
of width
of breadth
and
a vertical force
exerted by its mass
as a result of gravity.

And comprises mostly
and often
of the hard fibrous substances
lying beneath the bark
of most tall perennial plants
having a main trunk
and branches,
at a certain distance from the ground,
forming a distinct elevated crown.

Category of the aforementioned: entity: object: living: thing: organism: vascular plant: ligneous plant.

Held together
by a strong liquid
obtained by boiling collagenous animal parts,
such as bones and hooves,
into hard gelatine
then adding water
and items
whose chemical properties are of such that
when in aqueous solutions
their salts will yield positively charged ions,
namely a certain
ductile
malleable
silver-white
metallic element,
[scarcely known in a pure condition]
but used in its crude
or impure
carbon containing form,
with
an atomic weight of 55.847,
an atomic number of 26
and
at 20oC
a specific gravity of 7.86
and hit in place by a hammer.

Category of the aforementioned: entity: object: artefact: instrument: implement: hand tool.

And
sometimes
there’s a cushion.

semantic3.jpg

Posted by john at August 10, 2007 10:34 PM

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