"POEM" - an excerpt from the "Manifesto of Surrealism" by Andre Breton

This excerpt I'm sharing with you was taken from a section of Andre Breton's first Manifesto of Surrealism, and is a particular favorite in that it has inspired yours truly to drop all creative pretenses, etiquettes and rules in favor of random creativity from a seemingly controlled source (edited newspaper copy/headlines), and in effect "unediting" them into a new reality or a surreality -- which is how I choose to define surrealism (can't be defined so there).

What lurks between the lines is a sense of meaning, a message - a freedom. Enjoy:

"Everything is valid when it comes to obtaining the desired suddenness from certain associations. The pieces of paper that Picasso and Braque insert into their work have the same value as the introduction of a platitude into a literary analysis of the most rigorous sort. It is even permissible to entitle POEM what we get from the most random assemblage possible (observe, if you will, the syntax) of headlines and scraps of headlines cut out of the newspapers:

POEM

A burst of laughter

of sapphire in the island of Ceylon

The most beautiful straws

HAVE A FADED COLOR

UNDER THE LOCKS

on an isolated farm

FROM DAY TO DAY

the pleasant

grows worse

coffee

preaches for its saint

THE DAILY ARTISAN OF YOUR BEAUTY

M^ADAM,

a pair

of silk stockings

is not

A leap into space

A STAG

Love above all

Everything could be worked out so well

PARIS IS A BIG VILLAGE

Watch out for

the fire that covers

THE PRAYER

of fair weather

Know that

The ultraviolet rays

have finished their task

short and sweet

THE FIRST WHITE PAPER

OF CHANCE

Red will be

The wandering singer

WHERE IS HE?

in memory

in his house

AT THE SUITORS’ BALL

I do

as I dance

What people did, what they’re going to do"