Tzara- Hernandez

In “Manifesto of mr.aa the anti-philosopher”; we are treated to a piece of poetry that does not follow a specific rhyme pattern or strophe/stanza structure. It is more so a string of words, often drawing off and leading to nonsense, for example the line, “without searching for I adore you” which is directly followed by “who is a French boxer”. This manifesto is clearly a poem with leaps in subject that go on constantly, yet somehow connect, as the words “I adore you” can for a thought with “who is a French boxer”. This is a typical aspect of poetry, learning to stop lines so as to play with meaning as you create connections that are unexpected from line to line. It’s important to note these aspects of the work, as Tzara jumps from topic to topic as he strings sense along. But all of it is a contradiction. That is the biggest aspect of the work, that this mr.aa is an anti-philosopher who coincidently philosophizes a lot. Take this line for example, “and highly suspicious with a new form of intelligence and a new logic of our own” is highly philosophic in nature, it is specifically questioning a new form of intelligence and logic. Beyond this contradiction of Tzara’s manifesto, it’s important to note that beyond the content and its background, Tzara inserts little vocalizations, or pieces of personality in this manifesto in the form of foot notes. The first foot note follows “I am like all of you!” and says “I wanted to give myself a little publicity”. It’s a sort of negation of what he’s saying, it null and voids the meaning behind his words, causing us to question the sincerity of the whole manifesto. The second foot note is “No more manifestos” which follows the line “NO MORE WORDS!” and emphasizes the contradictory theme in the entire work. Why does Tzara write no more manifestos when he is writing more? The last foot note is simply “Sometimes.” This again brings the line it follows into question. He says “I do the opposite of what I suggest to others” yet we know it’s only sometimes. The point of suspicion of the manifesto itself contradicts the point of even writing it in the first place, much like the almost undefinable spirit of Dada in the first place. It is art, it is a movement, it is a lot of things, and so are the words in Tzara’s work. This is reminiscent of double sided social niceties, sarcasm and basic social interactions, the fact that often what we say is not what we mean, or that there’s always more that we haven’t yet said. Tzara writes for the social world, he writes like many modern day bloggers do, without a lot of meaning, but with words that rile people up, with philosophical speak and citations to artistic movement. It’s funny, how the writes of social media, the social justice bloggers and Meta writers at times echo Tzara’s nonsense, when perhaps they aren’t trying to write nonsense. Hey maybe I’m writing the same way.