Thursday, November 24, 2016

(12) Maija, -............0+




Tristan Tzara left us with a checklist for dada poems:

  To make a Dadaist poem:
  • Take a newspaper.
  • Take a pair of scissors.
  • Choose an article as long as you are planning to make your poem.
  • Cut out the article.
  • Then cut out each of the words that make up this article and put them in a bag.
  • Shake it gently.
  • Then take out the scraps one after the other in the order in which they left the bag.
  • Copy conscientiously.
  • The poem will be like you.
  • And here are you a writer, infinitely original and endowed with a sensibility that is charming though beyond the understanding of the vulgar.
Most of us like dada nonsense, but what if you'd know that some of that nonsense was written by other mammals?

Maija, a Helsinki-based cat, just published her own poetry book. Like many geniuses and fragile art personalities she is not a good producer. The book was edited by one of her human beings, Tero Juuti.

Maija's poetry reminds me about the work of Cia Rinne, who is famous for her linguistic cocktails. It is just that Maija's work is unintentional.

   tgraph
   u7666 bopå lö

Written by a Swede, the aforementioned poem could have been hinting on graphics (tgraph) and living on an island (bopå lö comes close to bo på en ö). The number, 7666, starts looking like a postal code. As a product of Maija's paws the poem of course just addresses the reader's will to 'make sense'.

I believe the (human) intention of publishing this comes just from the sheer amazement of facing cat writing. Cats do famously once in a while sit down on the computer and 'write'.

This connects us allegorically to other mammals. My dog seems to read very carefully the piss and the poop she finds outside of our house. These texts are impossible for us to read, but for me -............0+  is an attempt to overcome this bridge. Wonder if animals see our piss and poop as nonsense?

Maybe the ocean is a huge organic poetry book for the whale?

Artistically I like the era I live in. People publish a lot of small books without the stiffening hand of the professional editors and the publishing companies. Literature feels light and playful again. I am so happy about the crisis of the publishers, the way the internet has become a platform for literary work and the way even physical publishing has become accesible for nearly everyone.

Interested in the book? Try mailing tero.juuti@gmail.com.