Onomatopoeia Words Analysis

A simple reflex, when I saw Dadaist poetry for the first time, was “This is going to be so easy.” There was that voice, which most often haunts those visiting museums for modern art, whispering into my mind’s ear: “Psh, You could’ve done that, where’s the art in that.” Now, I technically know that that is not true, as we have been taught time and again in various institutions that art is a many-splendoured thing, but occasionally that derisive voice still pops into my brain. When Damian Hirst leaves a sheep sloshing around in dubious fluid it is “art”, when I do it, it is “unhygienic and clogging up the fridge”. Where is the fairness in that.
A significant amount of time has passed since my first introduction to – what else – Hugo Ball’s …show more content…
Do I have to? Is Ball not using it, just for sounds that are really movements? Or are his not-words actual not-WORDS. Is onomatopoeia words? [---] Having read up on what onomatopoeia actually entails, I am happy to report that it can be “words” (Kuckuck) as well as “not-words” (ZABADONG) and single letters making a semi-not-word (Zzzzz). I dare not put semi-not-word in quotation marks. My questionable terminology is decidedly stretching the permission of “tak[ing] a break from strictly academic writing”. As is my ample use of “I”. That is more than just not “strictly” academic. It’s never being fully allowed to be your own self in academic writing that has driven me quite first-person-singular-happy in this blog post. No “one”, no passive voice, just, me, myself and …show more content…
There is an urge to create meaning and make sense in familiar ways, following patterns we know. It is similarly difficult to create a thing stripped of conventional signification that is not entirely unappealing and able to grab our attention, entertain our brains. One way of achieving this is to give your jumble of letters a perfectly clear title, turning it into a game of “find the similarity”. Or possibly even give it a rather cryptic title, step it up a notch.
One fault in my attempts might be my struggling to fit the mould, just the one, when there are so many to choose from. Manifestos, other poetry, the whole of my keyboard. Not once did I use ~. Nothing short of shameful. Remove all limitations and a person will not know where to go.
Ultimately, a craving for concrete meaning needs to be satisfied, and if we as recipients have to put it there, so bet it. The reader makes the meaning. But can we ever allow anything to be meaningless? I for one could not allow Ball’s Karawane to pass me by in anything but a slow, swaying fashion. The little ü-mosquito ready to feast on the camels and the camel leaders. Until I discovered that Karawane sometimes comes with a subtitle – Zug der Elefanten. There were no elephants in my version. I cannot ignore the elephant in the room and it is driving me