The other day I came across this resolution passed by the city of Lawrence, KS declaring an International Dadaism Month. The resolution includes the phrase "WHEREAS: zimzim urallala zimzim urallala zimzim zanzibar zimzalla zam."Also, please check out the dates in their Dada "month."
I thought it was interesting to think that (as Jeffrey pointed out) Cheyenne or other cities in our heartland hadn't spawned a poetry movement, but it appears that they're just getting around to discovering dada which was begun oh about 90 years ago.Also see this picture of Lawrence's mayor: "Boog" Highberger. Thank you, Boog, for bringing poetry to the people.
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Right on, Dallas! Two local Kansans of note: poet Michael McClure, of Marysville, and collage artist/experimental film maker Bruce Conner of, um, somewhere nearby. For what it's worth, my dad's from a farm near Marysville, KS. So I know a little something about DaDas from Kansas. Ooof!
BTW Will, thanks for posting this. Really enjoyed it.
This whole question of where poets need to be to really "count" as poets and catch the full force of the new, is a great question btw. Strikes me as a very American one too--the country with no real capital, too big to hope for one cultural center, too ornery to really swallow the kind of prestige the older European institutions (Oxbridge, Academie Francaise) dispense with so readily. You're never going to get your name on a dollar bill here, por ejemplo. The struggle over that question "Where should I be?"--London? New York? Rapallo, Italy? Paris? New Haven, CT??--is an acute one for the poets we've studied so far, and might be an interesting angle to investigate.
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