Abstract Poetry

Free of the curse of Meaning (that bane of literature), Abstract Poetry (or Sound Poetry, as it is also called), should, we might suppose, be easier to write than its semantics-bound rival. Being supposedly easier to write, however, is not the only reason why it has enjoyed, if not exactly a bad name, certainly a lack of critical respect. More tellingly, it can be dismissed as inferior music. It craves the condition of music in the most obvious way possible, but its melodic resources are limited by the internal imperative to avoid becoming song, and so losing its identity as Abstract Poetry.
   I contend that Abstract Poetry can be divided into two main categories - though it is often identified with one of them. This category is exemplified by the Ursonate of Kurt Schwitters. Here is a sample of it:

Fümms bö wä tää zää Uu, pögiff, kwiiee.
Dedesnn nn rrrrr, Ii Ee, mpiff tillff toooo, tillll, Jüü-Kaa?
Rinnzekete bee bee nnz krr müüüü, ziiuu ennze ziiuu rinnzkrrmüüüü,
Rakete bee bee.
Rrummpff tillff toooo?
Ziiuu ennze ziiuu nnzkrrmüüüü, ziiuu ennze ziiuu rinnzkrrmüüüü,
Rakete bee bee.
Rakete bee zee.
Fümms bö wä tää zää Uu
Uu zee tee wee bee
zee tee wee bee
zee tee wee bee
zee tee wee bee
zee tee wee bee
zee tee wee bee Fümms...

   As you can see, it's quite uninteresting to read to yourself. It calls for a bravura performance, such as that provided by Schwitters himself in a classic recording. To compose Abstract Poems of this kind, it is probably best to start with a purely metrical scheme, perhaps one borrowed from an existing poem. The other category uses words and phrases that may have isolated meanings to create a succession of transitory images, while the poem as a whole is nonsense. (Cynics may pause to observe here that this describes quite a lot of contemporary poetry, though its authors would doubtless bridle at the suggestion that they are writing Abstract Poetry). The exemplary work in this category is Edith Sitwell's Façade. Here is Black Mrs. Behemoth from Façade:

In a room of the palace
Black Mrs. Behemoth
Gave way to wroth
And the wildest malice.
Cried Mrs. Behemoth,
"Come, court lady,
Doomed like a moth,
Through palace rooms shady!"
The candle flame seemed a yellow pompion,
Sharp as a scorpion,
Nobody came...
Only a bugbear
Air unkind,
That bud-furred papoose
The young spring wind,
Blew out the candle.
Where is it gone?
To flat Coromandel
Rolling on!

   To write this kind of Abstract Poetry in a fluent way, one has to devise a Cythera that is filled with sonorous-sounding things. The world of Façade, for example, is that of country-houses, parks, nurseries, formal gardens, and luxury hotels. This is similar to the Cythera of some poems that I also believe to be Abstract Poems, though they are not usually thought of as such. I mean, for example, the poems in Paul Verlaine's collection Fêtes Galantes. Here is Colloque Sentimentale from Fêtes Galantes:

Dans le vieux parc solitaire et glacé
Deux formes ont tout à l'heure passé.

Leurs yeux sont mort et leurs lèvres sont molles,
Et l'on entend à peine leurs paroles.

Dans le vieux parc solitaire et glacé
Deux spectres ont évoqué le passé.

"Te souvient-il de notre extase ancienne?"
"Pourquoi voulez-vous donc qu'il m'en souvienne?"

"Ton coeur bat-il toujours à mon seul nom?
Toujours vois-tu mon âme en rêve?" "Non."

"Ah! les beaux jours de bonheur indicible
Où nous joignions nos bouches!" "C'est possible."

"Qu'il était bleu, le ciel, et grand, l'espoir!"
"L'espoir a fui, vaincu, vers le ciel noir."

Tels ils marchaient dans les avoines folles,
Et la nuit seule entendit leux paroles.

(In the old park's frozen solitude
Two shadows lately passed.

Dead of eye and slack of mouth,
They murmured without sound.

In the old park's frozen solitude
Two ghosts invoked times past.

"Are you reminded of our ancient ecstasy?"
"Why would you have me put in mind of it?"

"Does mere mention of my name still thrill you?
Do you still have visions of my soul?" "No."

"Ah! Happy days of pleasure beyond words,
When our lips still touched!" "Perhaps so."

"How blue it was, the sky, how high our hopes!"
"Our hopes, defeated, have fled into the dark."

Thus they walked amidst wild oats,
The night their only audience.)

It can be seen from this last example that Abstract Poetry is capable of great poignancy, melancholy, and nostalgia.