in London, a Saturday in november, 1966. A tjugonioårig artist is on loppisjakt in a möbelmagasin. When he reaches the shelf with the rejected books, he takes a startling decision: first best book for the price of three pence shall be the basis for his life choice.
It will be the late 1800-century novel ”A human document”, of the neglected viktorianen W H Mallock. Soon he set out on his slumpfunna items. Painting over and drawing on the pages, but some of the words are saved and they become poems and a story in itself. Three years later he is finished. So he set out on the next one and the next copies of the novel. All with the from the original name framraderade the title ”A humument”.
And he holds on still, old man Phillips, says litteraturforskaren Lisa Schmidt on the bearded man who created the seminal in a visually explosive genre that on the surface seems obscure and helnördig, but which show themselves to accommodate the most universal statements and the harshest political attack.
” He has put the light on a work that no bastard will remember.
With tippex, spritpennor, needle and thread or a knife can old novels into new reading experiences. Photo: Emelie Asplund
Poem in which the practitioner takes an existing text, and then, for example, with tippex, spritpennor, needle and thread, digital or typographic manipulation, to cover over the words until something new and the other will be left.
Yes, there are even those who take to the knife in this action which is a concrete example of the postmodernisterna call the reclamation (and konservatisterna stamps such as shoplifting). A re-use of texts and books, where new meanings can arise.
It is this phenomenon which Lisa Schmidt taken a holistic approach to and exposed in his recently submitted doctoral thesis at Gothenburg university. Now also published in book form and named ”Delete”; a title which, by an ingenious formgrepp on the cover can be read as ”Raddera”.
in Addition, thus. A suitable concept in this context.
” As a researcher, I have always been curious about the poem that pushes the boundaries and plays with language and form, and it was when the american poet Jen Bervin on a poesifestival told me about how she achieved her poetry collection ”Nets” that I became interested in seriously.
In the book, which came in 2004, screened fragmentary modernist poems out of Shakespeare’s famous sonnets in ”Sonnets”. By ”faded out” certain words until they become foggy grey, and let the pristine black types create ordkedjorna which the eye sees first.
” I wanted to find out if there were more works in this genre. Soon I discovered a barrage of material.
Some points out and the other attacking the basic text must be maintained content. The latter I see as poetic activism.
” Partly, you have the right. We have an alphabet and letters that allows us to create something new, but language is at the same time, something that we share with each other by using recycled words and phrases, proverbs, and metaphors which has already been said and written. If I create ”completely free” is the risk that no one know what I mean! It just gets incomprehensible letters if you do not recycle our common vocabulary.
” not Really, for you can still write unique works with the amount of words that can be found on the individual pages. And the advantage and effect with raderingspoesin is that, in addition to the visibility that our language is a precondition recycling, can establish a dialogue with the text that was deleted is, its more or less past times and historical ideals. And the dialogue can take all the possible expressions.
” One would roughly be able to split it like this: some points out and the other attacking the basic text must be maintained content. The latter I see as poetic activism, ” says Lisa Schmidt.
Admission for the Swedish stridspilotsutbildade konkretistpoeten Åke Hodell.
” He shot the way bullet holes in his ”Autobiography” from 1967.
in the Same year, Hodell, raderingsverket Lisa Schmidt närgranskat, where he poured a lot of ink over the individual pages in the nationalromantikern Verner von Heidenstams patriotic resounding ”New poems”. And thus created a ”performative critical post”. In addition, the stroking he removed the clergyman, and set their own.
” I see it as Hodell goes in confrontation with an acclaimed national poet and a book heritage by which man had to learn at that time in the school. In a note he writes that he on a lecture failed to recite the Heidenstams poem ”Sweden”, and as punishment had to fill the entire chalkboard with it, erase and fill the board again, ” says Lisa Schmidt.
Lisa’s dissertation became the book ”Delete”. Photo: Emelie Asplund
also provides the actual bläckplumparna eerie vibes, on the individual pages where phrases like ”the stupa of the people and the king” is left.
” I think bläckpölarna absolutely similar to the blood! Hodell was a pacifist, and here he transforms the whole Heidenstams poetry to a battlefield.
And the genre’s knife? It has, among others, american Ariana Boussard-Reifel used. She is born 1981 and, in fact, ”Between the lines”, she has hand cut out all the words from a racist book.
– the Text of the book is a long plea for ethnic segregation. What she does is to expose the author’s book for its own ideology: she separates the black from the white by removing the black letters from the white book page. And then the whole work together. The power of this type of raderingsaktioner is in the visual. At the same time, there is an element of revenge, the book becomes a punching bag, a voodoo doll.
– Poetry is to take in. But consider it as raderingsestetik. The example that I bring up in my thesis all have a high artistic content, but there are also plenty of amatörverk where the source text is more randomly chosen, and where raderandet seems to be about redemption: it is only to take a black pen and suddenly you have created a poem.
Lisa Schmidt tells us that this property of deletion means that many teachers at the skrivarutbildningar the world over use the grip to put up the students. And also add that you can see here the use of physical objects as a tribute to pappersboken, which is said to be under threat in a digital world.
the Most breathtaking, is that she believes that the raderingspoesins basis – återbruket – has clear parallels to today’s public and environmentally necessary the craze for the recycling of materials, and second-hand concept on for example clothes.
– There is a fundamental view that ”we don’t need more stuff”, and you can, I think, translate to the literature: why not reuse something from all that has already been written?