VICTOR ERLICH
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most notably in "A Trap for the Judges" and "Declaration of the
Word as Such," subject matter is relegated to a secondary status.
Content is proclaimed an epiphenomenon. "New verbal form creates
a new content and not vice versa."
It
is not the radically changed
quality of life that calls for a new poetic vocabulary; it is the new
poetic language freed from the shackles of grammatical conventions
and poetic cliches that ushers in new thematic clusters such as ur–
banism. In this view, poetry is not about reality but about language;
it is an exploration, a celebration, a constant renewal of "the word as
such." In V. Kamenskij's words, it is "the verbal wedding rites," a
savoring of the outward - graphic and phonic - characteristics of the
word, at the expense of its "traditional subservience of meaning," if
necessary. The procedure of using "chopped-up words, half-words,
and their whimsical intricate combinations" which became known as
zaum'
(trans-sense language); the call for the "release of phonic
energy"; and especially A. Kruchonykh's much-touted experiments
with robustly unmellifluous nonsense syllables
(dr, but, scyr)
are at
least as akin to the dadaism of Tzvetan Tzara as to the futurism of
F. T. Marinetti. Early Russian futurism was ostensibly a challenge
to the turn-of-the-century mystiques, most notably to the Russian
symbolists' tendency to treat poetry as a gateway to "mystery. " Yet
the gospel of the "self-valuable word" appeared to repudiate any and
all messages - whether esoteric or social- and any and all attempts
to use poetic language for extra-esthetic purposes.
To be sure, this is only part of the story. For one thing, the
ultra-verbalistic or "dadaist" emphasis was more pronounced in
Aleksej Kruchonykh or Velimir Khlebnikov than it was in Vladimir
Mayakovsky. More relevantly, Mayakovsky's deeply felt rage
against the world he never made drove him early toward an increas–
ing involvement with the Russian revolutionary movement. In his
remarkable "Cloud in Trousers," one of the most explosive love
poems in the language, the powerfully projected sense of emotional
frustration, dispossession, and homelessness blends with an ardent
anticipation of a liberating upheaval.
When the longed for historic storm finally broke, Mayakovsky
was ready to give his all to the revolution or, in his own words, "to
offer [his] sonorous powers of the poet to you, the attacking class."
Mayakovsky's verses written in the first years of the revolution
breathe almost physical exhilaration. In the city in turmoil, in the
square gripped by the revolutionary fever, he found an ideal resonator
for his thundering voice, for his boisterous oratory. When routine
