Tuesday, December 25, 2007  Manifesto for Concrete Poetry,
Öyvind Fahlström  1. Starting Point  The literary fashion for
1953 was dictated by Sigtuna [where a literary conference was
held]. One rejected the psychoanalytically marked bust line and
hop line, pulled down the skirt length and lowered the neck
line. Since fantasy is to be stressed this year, flounces and
butterflies in the hair, everyone Sings with Setterlind (Swedish
"court" poet).  All this is well-known. But what lies behind
these general recommendations, how shall we realize them? It has
been said that we should interpret modern myths (at the same
time that Freud has been accused of myth-making); and that we
should not bury ourselves in the situation of our time, but
should concern ourselves with timeless symbols.  Myths: does
this mean to construct a complicated apparatus of symbolic and
mythological contacts a la Joyce, Gösta Oswald [Swedish
novelist], etc. "who did the same thing with Shakespeare or
Virgil"?  Or to give up the precise compl