ManicDDaily

Why Some Write (“Cut-Up” Homage to W.S. – the voice in English-speakers’
heads when we do write)

If the way to death is not lighted
by recorded fury, a syllable of strut, the brief stage
of fools told, this last candle of sound,
then life’s but time told
by a shadow, a to-morrow
that frets all yesterdays, and to-morrow,
full of dusty nothing, and
to-morrow, poor hour, a day-to-day that creeps
an idiot’s pace, a player
at walking, a petty tale of out, out.

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Here’s a poem for a very cool dVerse Poets Pubd prompt by Charles Miller that challenges one to use techniques developed both by the Dadaists and the Beats – that is cut-up poetry, mixing and matching words from other texts.

I confess to not being hugely comfortable with cut-up poetry – I’m very big on narrative and direct meaning–so I decided that if I did this exercise I was going to give myself a head start by using some very good words. In this case, I took Macbeth’s soliloquy –“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” from Act V, Scene V of Macbeth. I’ve tried to use all/most of the words – I may have a few more “a” and less “upons”. Being a woman, I also substituted “a” for “his” at one point.

It’s a fun, if challenging, exercise. For me, what was especially interesting in this, was how close the meaning has stayed to good old Shakespeare’s – even though I did try to mix the words up a bit. At any rate, I urge you to try the exercise and check out the other poets at dVerse.