I have always wondered why anyone would make much of most Dada works.  It was evident that a good number of reasonably intelligent, sensitive people have, though.   Including friends of mine who have shown themselves quite capable of fashioning works I think vastly superior to their Dada works.

Then I came upon Geof Huth’s

.              the car I didn’t notice                              isn’t there

in the recentest issue of Haiku Canada Review.   Not Dada, but certainly nonsense, or so I at first thought.  I would now term it nearsense.   As

.              the crab boils filge at blargets       in the goamy fludge

it would have been nonsense, or a literary work which uses irrational language in order to amuse (in the view of most knowledgeable people encountering it).  As

.        car didn’t (e time)s into                       bleep blegg bllllg you

it would be constersense,  or a literary work whose textual matter seems chosen for no other purpose than to cause consternation–by seeming to be nearsense but ultimately not making sense, or proving amusing.

Then there’s temporary nonsense such as Joyce’s “cropse,” which at first seems either nonsense or constersense (and will always seem constersense to Philistines) but, given time, will quite rationally if poetically say “corpse” and “crops” simultaneously in succinctly sum up all the important cycles of human existence.

I have more to say about this, particularly about why the poem by Geof Huth is nearsense, but I’m too worn-out from another tiring day to do so until (I hope) tomorrow.

I have always wondered why anyone would make much of most Dada works.  It was evident that a good number of reasonably intelligent, sensitive people have, though.   Including friends of mine who have shown themselves quite capable of fashioning works I think vastly superior to their Dada works.

Then I came upon Geof Huth’s

.              the car I didn’t notice                              isn’t there

in the recentest issue of Haiku Canada Review.   Not Dada, but certainly nonsense, or so I at first thought.  I would now term it nearsense.   As

.              the crab boils filge at blargets       in the goamy fludge

it would have been nonsense, or a literary work which uses irrational language in order to amuse (in the view of most knowledgeable people encountering it).  As

.        car didn’t (e time)s into                       bleep blegg bllllg you

it would be constersense,  or a literary work whose textual matter seems chosen for no other purpose than to cause consternation–by seeming to be nearsense but ultimately not making sense, or proving amusing.

Then there’s temporary nonsense such as Joyce’s “cropse,” which at first seems either nonsense or constersense (and will always seem constersense to Philistines) but, given time, will quite rationally if poetically say “corpse” and “crops” simultaneously in succinctly sum up all the important cycles of human existence.

I have more to say about this, particularly about why the poem by Geof Huth is nearsense, but I’m too worn-out from another tiring day to do so until (I hope) tomorrow.

Tags: haiku

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