Revolution of the Word: A New Gathering of American Avant Garde Poetry, 1914-1945

by Jerome Rothenberg

Jerome Rothenberg has raised the anthology to an art form. His most recent publication, Poems for the Millennium (University of California Press, 1995) reevaluates modernism from a global perspective. Shaking the Pumpkin (1972) and America a Prophecy (1973) diversified the canon long before "multi-culturalism." And his 1974 Revolution of the Word remains an unparalleled collection of American avant-garde writing from between the wars. Nearly twenty-five years after its first publication, this long out-of-print collection is still xeroxed for college courses because it contains works that are otherwise unavailable (by Else von Freytag-Loringhoven, Abraham Lincoln Gillespie, et al.), and because it places some of the most popular writers of the century - e.e cummings, T.S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein - in their original context: the anarchistic experimentation of early modernism.

Authors include: Walter Conrad Arensberg, Bob Brown, e. e. cummings, H. D. (Hilda Doolittle), Marcel Duchamp, T. S. Eliot, Else von Freytag-Loringhoven, Marsden Hartley, Mina Loy, Marianne Moore, Ezra Pound, Carl Sandburg, Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Hart Crane, Harry Crosby, Robert Duncan, Kenneth Fearing, Charles Henri Ford, Abraham Lincoln Gillespie, Eugene Jolas, Walter Lowenfels, Jackson Mac Low, Charles Olson, George Oppen, Kenneth Patchen, Kenneth Rexroth, Charles Reznikoff, Laura Riding, Louis Zukofsky

Genres: Poetry, Anthologies

296 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

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

[Adnan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Note to self in a vague order of likeness ;;;
Marcel duchamp
Gertrude stein
Abraham Lincoln gillepsie
Ezra pound
Eugene jolas
Jackson mac low
Marsdon Hartley
Walter lowenefels
Kenneth patcher

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

With Revolution of the Word, poet Jerome Rothenberg gathers a selection of American avant garde poetry from perhaps the most productive period in the history of American avant garde poetry, 1914 - 1945. Including the following poets in his selection: Walter Conrad Arensberg, Bob Brown, E. E. Cummings, H. D. (Hilda Doolittle), Marcel Duchamp, T. S. Eliot, Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, Marsden Hartley, Mina Loy, Marianne Moore, Ezra Pound, Carl Sandburg, Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Hart Crane, Harry Crosby, Robert Duncan, Kenneth Fearing, Charles Henri Ford, Abraham Lincoln Gillespie, Eugene Jolas, Walter Lowenfels, Jackson Mac Low, Charles Olson, George Oppen, Kenneth Patchen, Kenneth Rexroth, Charles Reznikoff, Laura Riding Jackson, Louis Zukofsky...

Ing? Is it possible to mean ing?
Suppose
 for the termination in g
 a disoriented
 series
 of the simple fractures
 in sleep.
 Soporific
 has accordingly a value for soap
 so present to
 sew pieces.
 And p says: Peace is.
And suppose the i
 to be big in ing
 as Beginning.
 Then Ing is to ing
as aloud
 accompanied by times
and the meaning is a possibility 
 of ralsis. 
- Walter Conrad Arensberg, "Ing" (pg. 4-5)


I chew tobacco moistly
And keep the aquarium.
My gold fish are goopy eyed
And droopy;
The lady ones wear bridal veils
And float about the drawing room
Languorously toying with their
Gorgeous Japanese fans
(That stupid folks call fins)
Closing and opening them dreamily,
Like soft-eyed Spanish senoritas;
Flirting with me,
Flashing filmy handkerchiefs of crepe
And lace before my fascinated eyes.
Pruning their weeping willow tails
For my praise.
[...]
- Bob Brown, "The Aquarium Keeper" (pg. 10)


 r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r
 who
a)s w(e loo)k
upnowgath
 PPEGORHRASS
 eringint(o-
aThe):l
 eA
 !p:
S a
 (r
rIvIng .gRrEaPsPhOs)
 to
rea(be)rran(com)gi(e)ngly
,grasshopper;
- E. E. Cummings, "No Thanks, No. 13" (pg. 16)


XXXIX

We have had too much consecration,
too little affirmation,

too much: but this, this, this
has been proved heretical,

too little: I know, I feel
the meaning that words hide;

they are anagrams, cryptograms,
little boxes, conditioned

to hatch butterflies . . .
- H. D. (Hilda Doolittle), from The Wall Do Not Fall (pg. )


I wish to state in the first place that
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
. . . . . . . . . . . . that he is the
first in the world, and notably superi-
or . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
We approve beforehand . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . which he commands . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
we are convinced that . . . . . . . . . 
. . . . . . . . inspired by the highest
motives.
[...] 
- Marcel Duchamp, "SURcenSURE" (pg. 25-26)


Wheels are growing on rose-bushes
gray and affectionate
O Jonathan - Jonathan - dear
Did some swallow Prendergast's silverheels -
be drunk forever and more
- with lemon appendicitis?
- Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, Affectionate (pg. 38)


SWISH SWISH SWISH
 on a sandboard
 to waltztime
 in the flare
 of a white SPOT
 illuminating
 most splendidly.
- Marsden Hartley, from 1920-1922 (pg. )


We might have coupled
In the bed-ridden monopoly of a moment
Or broken flesh with one another
At the profane communion table
Where wine is spill't on promiscuous lips
We might have given birth to a butterfly
With the daily-news
Printed in blood on its wings
- Mina Loy, "Love Songs, IX" (pg. 59)


of ice. Deceptively reserved and flat,
it lies "in grandeur and in mass"
beneath a sea of shifting snow dunes;
dots of cyclamen-red and maroon on its clearly defined pseudopodia
made of glass that will bend - a much needed invention -
comprising twenty-eight ice fields from fifty to fifty-hundred feet
 thick,
[...] 
- Marianne Moore, An Octopus (pg. 72)


I
More than they liked.
More than they liked. Them.
II
For it. To be. At last. Lost.
III
Which they made ready. For them.
IV
They were waiting. For them.
They were ready when. They were waiting. Then. For them.
V
More often they were ready.
With them.
Especially. With them.
VI
It is a pleasure. For them.
To be read. With them.
VII
As much as they can. Be ready. With them.
VIII
It is very strange. That when summer begins. They are not ready. For them.
Because during the winter. They are busy. Occupying themselves. With them.
IX
Mine. One. At a time.
X
It is very ready. To be ready. With them.
Are you ready.
XI
For them. Or. With them.
XII
Many. Are ready. For them.
- Gertrude Stein, They May Be Said To Be Ready (pg. 92-93)


Let them return, saying you blush again for the Great-grandmother. It's all like Chsitmas.
When you sprouted Paradise a discard of chewing-gum took place. Up jug to musical, hanging jug just gay spiders yoked you first, - silking of shadows good underdrawers for owls.
First-plucked before and since the Flood, old hypnotisms wrench the golden bough. Leaves spatter dawn from emerald cloud-sprockets. Fat final prophets with lean bandits crouch: and dusk is close.
 under your noon,
 you Sun-heap, whose
ripe apple-lanterns gush history, recondite lightnings, irised.
 O mister Senor
 Mademoiselle
 with baskets
 Maggy, come on
- Hart Crane, "The Mango Tree" (pg. 120)


Do you know what an explosion is or a madness? Do you know the three great elements in an attack? Do you know the voltage required to create a current between the artery of the heart and the Sun?
- Harry Crosby, "Alchemy of Stimulants" (pg. 124)


[...]
There, this resignation.
Whether signed in a Turkish bath, with a quart of rye, or in a good hotel, sealed with a bullet, is none of your business. None at all.
There is no law compelling any man on earth to do the same, second hand,
I am tired of following invisible lives down intangible avenues to fathomless ends.
Is this clear?
Herewith, therefore, to take effect at once, I resign.
- Kenneth Fearing, "Agent No. 174 Resigns" (pg. 139)


READIE-SOUNDPIECE (after a suggestion of Hilaire Hiler)(synchro-with Orchestrauto maton)
 A. Lincoln Gillespie, Jr.
(two chord-puffs, trumpets) Snaredrum,stringplucks,mandoline) ----------------->
 /|\ /|\ (PP)
POKER ......funny- -post-adolesCollege-days- -Fall- -return- -Glee
-----------------> -------------------->--------------------> ------->
Club- -rehearse- AssemblyHall- walk-fifteen-minutes- -FratHouse- -supper-rush
 (insts.swoon) (typewriters' clickpict---------------------------------->
 /|\ /|\
-eat-late-arrive- -inside- quantity-Freshmen-flit-past-
 <> (fife-peers,a'la recherche intermingle)
- Abraham Lincoln Gillespie (pg. 144)


mira ool dara frim
oasta grala drima
os tristomeen.

ala grool in rosa
alsabrume
lorabim
masaloo
blueheart of a

roolata gasta
miralotimbana
allatin

juanilama
- Eugene Jolas, "Mountain Words" (pg. 149)


[...]
O Few
 O Poets
 mourn for Apollinaire.
He has sunk and will not rise
 and still
 through the rainy nights of Paris
moves his unuttered poem
 and lives
still in the mind's persisting Spring.
- Walter Lowenfels, "Apollinaire An Elegy" (pg. 165)


good guy can't carry cash
 crash
good guy can't carry cash
cood cguy cgan't gary gpash

g la ss g la ss g la ss g la ss g la ss
 (gloss)
- Jackson Mac Low (pg. 176)


Take, then my answer:
there is a tide in a man 
moves him to his moon and,
though it drops him back
he works through ebb to mount
the run again and swell
to be tumescent I

The affairs of men remain a chief concern

We have come full circle.
I shall not see the year 2000
unless I stem straight from my father's mother,
break the fatal male small span.
If that is what the tarot pack proposed
I shall hang out some second story window
and sing, as she, one unheard liturgy

Assume I shall not.
Is it of such concern when what shall be
already is within the moonward sea?

Full circle: an end to romans, hippocrats and christians.
There! is a tide in the affairs of men to discern.

Shallows and miseries shadows from the cross,
ecco men and dull copernican sun.
Our attention is simpler
The salts and minerals of the earth return
The night had a love for throwing its shadows around a man
a bridge, a horse, the gun, a grave.
- Charles Olson, "The K" (pg. 178-179)


Bad times:
The cars pass
By the elevated posts
And the movie sign.
A man sells post-cards.
- George Oppen, from Discrete Series (pg. 188)


Let us have madness openly, O men
Of my generation. Let us follow
The footsteps of this slaughtered age:
See it trail across Time's dim land
Into the closed house of eternity
With the noise that dying has, 
With the face that dead things wear -
 nor ever say
We wanted more; we looked to find
An open door, an utter deed of love,
Transforming day's evil darkness;
 but
We found extended hell and fog
Upon the earth, and within the head
A rotting bog of lean huge graves
- Kenneth Patchen, "Let Us Have Madness Openly" (pg. 190-191)


1
 "From any event intervals radiate in
 all directions to other events, and the
 real and imaginary intervals are sepa-
 rated by a cone which is called the
 null-cone."
 gonaV
 ;
ing ev
 IT
 dras
 2m3nL1/2
 pros
 *proS
instoting
tismaD
PROXY
gela
 domi
 immoderate
PROSPECT
savours curve doing instant conceptual bipartite
 engine
West inclination 32
PERSPECTIVE
engine
ENGINE
MACHINE
CONCEPTUAL PERSPECTIVE ENGINE
 x y z
motor-organ-organ-motor-........................ds!
[...]
- Kenneth Rexroth, "Fundamental Disagreement with Two Contemporaries (pg. 200)


1
THE IDIOT

With green stagnant eyes,
arms and legs
loose ends of string in a wind,

keep smiling at your father.

2
EPIDEMIC

Streamers of crepe idling before doors.

3
TWILIGHT

No stars
in the blue curve
of the heavens,
no wind.

Far off,
a white horse
in the green gloom
of the meadow.

4
GHETTO FUNERAL

Followed by his lodge, shabby men stumbling over the cobblestones,
and his children, faces and ugly with tears, eyes and eyelids red,
in the black coffin in the black hearse the old man.

No longer secretly grieving
that his children are not strong enough to go the way he wanted to go
and was not strong enough.

5
APHRODITE VRANIA

The ceaseless weaving of the uneven water.

6
From the fog a gull flies lowly
and is lost in fog. The buildings are only clouds.

7
How difficult for me is Hebrew:
even the Hebrew for mother, for bread, for sun
is foreign. How far have I been exiled, Zion.
- Charles Reznikoff, from Five Groups of Verse (pg. 213-214)


What to say when the spider
Say when the spider what
When the spider the spider what
The spider does what
Does does dies does it not
Not live and then not
Legs legs then none
When the spider does dies
Death spider death
Or not the spider or
What to say when
To say when
To say always
Death always
They dying of always
Or alive or dead
What to say when I
When I or the spider
No I and I what
Does what does dies
No when the spider dies
Death spider death
Death always I
Death before always
Death after always
Dead or alive
Now and always
What to say always
Now and always
What to say now
Now when the spider
What does the spider
The spider what dies
Dies when then when
Then always death always
The dying of always
Always now I
What to say when I 
When I what
When I say
When the spider 
When I always
Death always
When death what
Death I says say
Dead spider no matter
How thorough death
Dear or alive
No matter death
How thorough I 
What to say when
When who when the spider
When life when space
The dying of oh pity
Poor how thorough dies
No matter reality
Death always
What to say
When who
Death always
When death when the spider
When I who I
What to say when
Now before after always
When then the spider what
Say what when now
Legs legs then none
When the spider
Death spider death
The genii who cannot cease to know
What to say when the spider 
When I say
When I or the spider
Dead or alive the dying of
Who cannot cease to know
Who death who I
The spider who when
What to say when 
Who cannot cease
Who cannot
Cannot cease
Cease
Cannot
The spider
Death I
We 
The genii
To know
What to say when the
Who cannot
When the spider what
Does what does dies
Death spider death
Who cannot
Death cease death
To know say what
Or not the spider
Or if I say
Or if I do not say
Who cannot cease to know
Who know the genii
Who say the I
Who they we cannot
Death cease death
To know say I
Oh pity poor pretty
How thorough life love
No matter space spider
How horrid reality
What to say when
What when
Who cannot
How cease
The knowing of always
Who these this space
Before after here
Life now my face
The face love the
The legs real when
What time death always
What to say then
What time the spider
- Laura Riding Jackson, "Elegy in a Spider's Web" (pg. 224-228)

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rothenberg is the supreme editor for experimental literature, and this collection ranges across the period between the end of WWI and the end of WWII with an engaging and sometimes explosive collection of poems. He includes some well-known modern poets, like cummings, Moore, Sandberg, Crane, etc. cheek by jowl with people the reader might not think of "poets" - like Marcel Duchamp or Marsden Hartley. I love the sequence from Harry Crosby, perhaps the ultimate poet maudit, as the French put it, who committed suicide after spending the last two years of his life producing obsessive, fascinating work.

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the great Poetry anthologies of all time. Very thoughtful and lots of fascinating (and still) obscure poets. The famous one's are here as well, but it's the ones' you don't know that makes this package a tasty treat.

[Nativeabuse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neat little collection of avant garde poetry of all different types, I thoroughly enjoyed it and I'll probably come back to it again.