That Dada Strain: Poetry

by Jerome Rothenberg

The title of Jerome Rothenberg's newest collection suggests jazz, blues, and above all the Dada movement in European art and poetry in the years immediately following World War I. "In my own world," he explains in his pre-face to That Dada Strain , "the Dada fathers who inhabit the opening poems of this book are necessary figures, & to summon them up along with their legends is no more erudite than to summon up Moses or George Washington or Harpo or Karl Marx, & so on." For Rothenberg, the Dada connection, his looking back to Dada founders Tristan Tzara, Hugo Ball, Kurt Schwitters, and Francis Picabia, is especially apt, emphasizing as it does a "strain" that is echoed and replayed throughout all his work, whether it be oral poetry, ethnopoetics, translation, or the assembling of innovative anthologies. Following the title section is "Imaginal Geographies," a group of poems that draw largely on the poet's private self, his own language and perceptions, in much the same way that the Dada poets recorded associations between images for which no key was readily available. In the third and final section, "Altar Pieces," Rothenberg attempts, as he says, "to return to the world in which human beings still suffer both the loss of bread & words." Jerome Rothenberg's previous books of poetry with New Directions include Poland/1931 (1974), Poems for the Game of Silence (1975), A Seneca Journal (1978), and, most recently, Vienna Bl ood (1980). Pre-Faces & Other Writings , his first collection of poetics, was awarded the Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Award for 1982.

Genres: Poetry

84 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1983

About the author

Jerome Rothenberg is an internationally known American poet, translator and anthologist who is noted for his work in ethnopoetics and poetry performance.

Reviews

[Benjamin Fasching-Gray · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are three sections; I liked the third one -- "Altar Pieces" -- the best. It was the darkest, and I liked the characters... especially the general who has breasts down to his knees. Just kind of stumbled on this Rothenberg guy recently. I am still not sure what to think of him. I do like the Jewish references. There was one poem I found pretty confusing but I could tell it was about bad stuff in Palestine... turns out it was inspired by the story of some protestant Vietnam Vet who went all kooky and joined Meier Kahane's evil scene and did some dirt and then got killed. I don't mind being confused by poetry but I think I like it better when I'm not confused.