I like the idea of the zaum not as means to create a new language uninfluenced by power relations but as a means to arrive at things that are weird, as a means to arrive at who knows what. The below should be read as a duet. The speakers alternate after pronouncing a letter, though if they choose and see an opportunity they can pronounce diphthongs or consonant clusters. The space between letters should indicate the tempo. For advanced performers, other metrics (right to left, top to bottom, placement in the alphabet) might indicate musical tones. Though this is definitely “stone soup.”
.….. A. a I
...v v iR
..e a ……..,,,,,.v a v
.. hl……………,,,,,a i
..ta…………..,,,. A R I
..e. c ………….,,,,,.v a
.m h ……….,,,,,.i r
…I………………. y
..n……………. e
d…………… l
e………….. l
f…………. e
e……….. h
n……… s
s…….. t
e…… e
o…. i
f… r
h. r
a
If I were to say that were a calligram, not a zaum, how would I interpret it? I would identify the figure is an ice cream cone, then would read “in defense of harriet shelley” comprising the cone, while a jumble of letters comprise the ice cream and I would try to see how that might make sense. Or I would say the figure is the head of a stork seen in overview and notice the beak is comprised by the phrase “in defense…” and try to think of how that make sense. Or I might compare a bird beak to a sugar cone, an ice cream scoop to a bird head. I might try and see what Harriet Shelley, a bird’s head and ice cream cones had to do with each other.
The asking of such questions of course depends on one making a prior judgment that the artwork is good and worthy of interpretation, which I’m not making here, but rather trying to establish how one is to read/ look at such an artwork on the assumption it’s worth paying any attention to at all. Here is some of what S.I. Lockerbie says about it in his introduction to Anne Hyde Greet’s translation of Calligrammes (pp.11):
“… some readers have fallen into the trap of thinking that the shape is simply a tautological repetition of what the referential or discursive meaning of the words already clearly conveys. But to do so is to misunderstand the different nature of the reading operations involved in even the simplest association of word and picture. Tautology is impossible between a linguistic statement and the instant impression conveyed by a shape. Inevitably, and in poetic use deliberately, the words refine and add connotation and overtones that extend and complicate the initial response. The eye and mind of the reader describe a circle that leads from recognition of the object to the exploration of the poet’s reflections on it, and back again to the picture overlaid with a new significance.”
.i`` * ^ / . . . . . ` `~ 