Henri Chopin: Paul Neuhuys, Ça Ira! and Dada - VI

ça ira, 11, February 1921, woodcut by Jan Cockx

Of course, I am glossing over a great deal, as my aim is simply to talk – briefly – of this review with its many strokes of brilliance, as, for instance, in Number 10 in January 1921, from which I extract these lines by Neuhuys on an Introduction to some Poets:

Revolutionary currents have distant origins. One is occasionally tempted to go far back to discover fore-runners. Dada may descend from Pythagorus. It seems paradoxical; yet don’t golden lines like: Don’t piss against the sun, make you think of the esoteric notations of our most inveterate Dadas?

Or else:

One day a friend of mine who likes joking had, under the influence of a few beers, parodied some famous lines:

Les plus désespérés sont les chants les plus faux

Et j’en sais d’immortels qui sont de purs bateaux.

And if, in other lines ‘Stendhal and the restification of enthusiasm’ by Léon Chenoy says nothing to me, it is because today Action in poetry had dominated reflection, even if the latter can seize our time in a premonitory way.

So it is action  that prevails from Number 11 of Ça Ira! In February 1921 and later. There is the arrival of Clément Pansaers, with his Paradoxes Blennorrhagiques de Lamprido from which I quote a short extract:

Didn’t you tell me that you cost a lot of money little lady? What becomes of the values of your lines and volumes if the buyer finds the factor that reduces both costly and cheap to nought? But no, certainly not Socialism! And how you tumble down old-fashioned! Your socialism hides cretinism! If O is to good as A is to bad, so is socialism tot bourgeoisie!

I repeat to you that words are vain. Don’t insist. Already the paradox of your metaphor yells blasphemy. Words are purges, why not, at the most harmless. What? Yes. A little music would liven up the session.

Henri CHOPIN

Collection OU, 7, Ingatestone, Essex, 1977.

Of course, I am glossing over a great deal, as my aim is simply to talk – briefly – of this review with its many strokes of brilliance, as, for instance, in Number 10 in January 1921, from which I extract these lines by Neuhuys on an Introduction to some Poets:

Revolutionary currents have distant origins. One is occasionally tempted to go far back to discover fore-runners. Dada may descend from Pythagorus. It seems paradoxical; yet don’t golden lines like: Don’t piss against the sun, make you think of the esoteric notations of our most inveterate Dadas?

Or else:

One day a friend of mine who likes joking had, under the influence of a few beers, parodied some famous lines:

Les plus désespérés sont les chants les plus faux

Et j’en sais d’immortels qui sont de purs bateaux.

And if, in other lines ‘Stendhal and the restification of enthusiasm’ by Léon Chenoy says nothing to me, it is because today Action in poetry had dominated reflection, even if the latter can seize our time in a premonitory way.

So it is action  that prevails from Number 11 of Ça Ira! In February 1921 and later. There is the arrival of Clément Pansaers, with his Paradoxes Blennorrhagiques de Lamprido from which I quote a short extract:

Didn’t you tell me that you cost a lot of money little lady? What becomes of the values of your lines and volumes if the buyer finds the factor that reduces both costly and cheap to nought? But no, certainly not Socialism! And how you tumble down old-fashioned! Your socialism hides cretinism! If O is to good as A is to bad, so is socialism tot bourgeoisie!

I repeat to you that words are vain. Don’t insist. Already the paradox of your metaphor yells blasphemy. Words are purges, why not, at the most harmless. What? Yes. A little music would liven up the session.

Henri CHOPIN

Collection OU, 7, Ingatestone, Essex, 1977.