Examples of Poems from Dadaism

Like other artistic avant-gardes, he questioned everything that was established: cultural tradition, its institutions, their norms, the concept of beauty, the formats, codes and limits of artistic disciplines. That is why Dadaism was considered a form of “anti-art”, due to its spirit of opposition and defiance of the established, in particular with respect to the values ​​of bourgeois society.

Dadaism spread to the fields of literature, sculpture, painting, and even music, but also to the ideological sphere: it was a way of life that was proposed to go against the values accepted.

In poetry, he had great exponents. Among the most prominent poets within the Dada movement we can mention Hugo Ball, Tristan Tzara, Jean Arp, Francis Picabia, Wieland Herzfeld, Emmy Hennings, Louis Aragon, among others.

Characteristics of Dadaism in Poetry

Examples of Dadaist Poems

"Wild Water" by Tristan Tzara
Translation of Aldo Pellegrini

the hungry teeth of the eye
covered in silk soot
open to the rain
all year
naked water
darkens the sweat from the forehead of the night
the eye is enclosed in a triangle
the triangle supports another triangle

eye at reduced speed
chews fragments of sleep
chews sun teeth teeth laden with sleep

the orderly noise on the periphery of the glow
is an angel
that serves as a lock to the safety of the song
a pipe that is smoked in the smoking compartment
in his flesh the screams are filtered through the nerves
that lead the rain and its drawings
women wear it as a necklace
and awakens the joy of astronomers

Everybody takes it for a set of marine folds
velvety from the heat and insomnia that colors it

his eye only opens to mine
there is no one but me who is afraid when he looks at it
and leaves me in a state of respectful suffering
there where the muscles of his belly and his inflexible legs
are found in an animal puff of saline breath
I modestly dismiss the cloud formations and their goal
unexplored flesh that burnish and soften the subtlest waters

"Dance of Death, 1916", by Hugo Ball
Translation of Daniel Bencomo

Thus we perish, thus we perish,
every day we perish,
it is very comfortable to let yourself die.
In the morning still between dream and dream,
Further at noon.
At night in the depths of the grave.

War is our brothel.
Our sun is made of blood.
Death is our symbol and slogan.
Boy and female we abandon
How do they concern us?
Well now it is possible
Just abandon ourselves.

This is how we murder, this is how we murder,
every day we stoned
colleagues of ours in the dance of death.
Stand up brother before me,
Brother, your chest!
Brother you must fall and die.

We don't grunt, we don't grunt.
Every day we keep quiet
Until the ilium rotates at its juncture.
Hard is our bed,
Our bread is hard.
Filthy and bloody the adored God.

"Elegy", by Tristan Tzara
Translation of Darie Novácenau

The old soul, beloved, you want me to be like the summer flowers
during winter the birds are locked in their cages

I love you as the hill awaits the body of the valley
or as the earth awaits the thick and fertile rain

I wait for you every evening at the window, unraveling beads
laying down the books, reading my verses

And now I'm glad when in the yard the dogs bark the dogs bark
and when you arrive to stay with me until tomorrow until tomorrow

My happy soul is like our warm room
When I know it's snowed and the streets are dressed in white

"And hit and hit and hit", by Jean Arp
Translation of Jesús Munárriz

and keep hitting and again
and so on
and once twice three times up to a thousand
and start again with more force
and hit the big multiplication table and the little table
to multiply
and she hits and hits and hits
page 222 page 223 page 224 and so on to page 299
turn to page 300 and continue to page 301 to page 400
and hit this one time forward twice backward three times
up and down four times
and hit the twelve months
and the four seasons
and seven days a week
and the seven tones of the scale
and the six feet of the iambs
and the even numbers of the houses
and hit
and hit it all together
and the account is done
and give one.

"Morphine" by Emmy Hennings
Translation of José Luis Reina Palazón

We look forward to one last adventure,
what do we care about the sun in the dome!
Towering days uplifted fall from its height.
Restless nights - pray in purgatory.

We no longer read the press of the day.
Sometimes only on the cushions we smile,
because we know and destroy everything,
We fly here and there in a cold fever.

Men can run and ambition.
Today the rain falls even darker.
We go through an insecure life
and we sleep, confused, without waking up.

“Canto funebrulicular”, by Wieland Herzfelde
Translation by Jesús García Rodríguez

Wantía quantía wantía
There my aunt is sitting
Since Ephraim swallowed the piggy bank
He wanders - ayayay -
Out there and pay no taxes.
Wirt drenched in sweat massages her ass
With application!
Safte vita rati rota sqa momofantieja,
What are you crying, old aunt?
Oelisante is dead! Oelisante is dead!
Heavens hail my crucifixionsacramentschockextreme misery!
He still owed me fifteen fifty euros.

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