The Eccentric Club, formerly known in its various incarnations as The Illustrious Society of Eccentrics, The Everlasting Society of Eccentrics, The Eccentric Society Club and, finally, The Eccentric Club. It was once one of the most important institutions of the British society. Its name is a long established and reputable brand, its members were amongst those who had shaped the British culture into what it is now, its history is inseparable with that of Britain itself... Founded a number of times by seemingly unrelated and socially different groups of people, for centuries it served as a meeting point to many great and original minds, pioneers of thought in artistic, literary, theatrical, scientific, legal and political circles, providing an amicable environment for their recreational and creative pastime as well as a testing ground for the novel and controversial theories and approaches to the issues equally important to the British society and the entire mankind.
First records of The Eccentric Club began with its official opening in 1781:
"Lookat that eccentric wheel in that steam engine, what motion would you get out of it without that wheel's eccentricity - only rest. So in society you would get precious little driving force out of it, but for eccentricities having free andactive motion. Let us encourage them, let us utilize them! (Applause)." -(Extract of the opening speech by its first president, 1781).
I composed a poem Inspired by the forthcoming 'Monthly General Meeting' of the Eccentric Club in London; which will incorporate a festival of eccentric poetry- featuring cutting-edge contemporary verse versus lyric recollections from the dusty archival drawers of the authors and publishers. In this I adopted the traditional sonnet, an example by the Bard himself: William Shakespeare and reworked it according to the modernist anarchic principles ofthe Dadaist poet Tristran Tzara, employing the sharpened capabilities of a pair of scissors. I thus set about chopping up the Elizabethan Bard's well crafted verse, subjecting it to another ancient form of random divination and re-composing it within a new framework. I kept the sonnet format (abab cdcd efef gg), added a few words of my own and decided to dedicate this one to the Jean Francois Dor and the Eccentric Club.
THE METHOD:
To Make A Dadist Poem
Take a newspaper.
Take some scissors.
Choose from this paper an article the length you want to make your poem.
Cut out the article.
Next carefully cut out each of the words that make up this article and put them all in a bag.
Shake gently.
Next take out each cutting one after the other.
Copy conscientiously in the order in which they left the bag.
The poem will resemble you.
And there you are--an infinitely original author of charming sensibility, even though unappreciated by the vulgar herd.
ByTristan Tzara
(TristanTzara (April 16, 1896 - December 25, 1963) is the pseudonym of Sami Rosenstock, born in Moinesti, Bacău, Romania. A poet and essayist who lived for the majority of his life in France, he is known mainly as a founder of Dada, a nihilistic revolutionary movement in the arts.)
PRE-OPERATION OVERVIEW:
William Shakespeare. Sonnet XVIII
1. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
2. Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
3. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
4. And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
5. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
6. And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
7. And every fair from fair sometime declines,
8. By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
9. But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
10. Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
11. Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
12. When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
13. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
14. So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
POST-OPERATIVE STUDY:
Possession eternal complexion hot summers untrimmed day? long this the thou rough wanderest lines and death sometime life when too nature's and in eyes thou thou shall men sometimes changing brag chance summer eternal shade compare fair as often gives temperate fair lease more dimmed thee in shake shall can short that from can his owest see declines summer nor thee his growest breathe every of date thy gold buds the heaven fair this or do fade so by I may and thou shines lives but of to lovely in course not or and art more and lose darling hath a eye of no to so shall winds long all too a.
DR.SHELLY'S DRAMATIC RECONSTRUCTION:
The Sonnet Reconstructed: The Days of Gold, dedicated to Jean Francois Dor Director.
In possession of your eternal complexion;
Long lease of those hot, untrimmed summer days,
Thou beam wanders in my rough direction
Thro life's nature tho' sometime death too brays.
And when thy men shall sometimes, in thy eyes
Brag the shady chance of summer eternal
And compare the fair, as temperate oft gives guise
Tis short shake for thee, less dimmed in each vernal;
The more yer summer declines, this all can'st see
T'more your breath grows, in all dates, in every way;
Fades not his fair gold buds of heaven: but flows free
And so, may thy Sun-shine thro lives of mortal clay…
A darling course too lovely in art and yet more
So eyes and long winds shall ever rest on thee: Dor.
CONCLUSION:
Tristran Tzara recommends a newspaper clipping although in this instance I used a poem by a reputable bard. I might have gone completely wild and written something truly avant-garde but something within me begged for the traditional format of the sonnet. With the references to 'summer', 'sun' and by inference 'gold' I decided to dedicate and end the composition to J.F.D. (the French/Belgic 'd'or' beingthe word for gold). And so, everything has been examined, probed, dissected, illuminated, reconstructed, re-appraised and dedicated: fulfilling the standard requirements for combining the ancient with the contemporary. The central anarchic principle of the Dada poem allows the poet to do whatever he/she desires, regardless of any convention: so although I have followed atraditional format in this example, I need not have.
In all good faith,
David John Drew. Copyright / All Rights Reserved 2009.
Image: André
Breton, René Hilsum, Louis Aragon and Paul Eluard posing with a copy of Dada 3,
1919.
