Surrealist and Dadaist Poetry

Surrealism and Dadaism have been two of the most influential and powerful internationalist movements of the twentieth century. Revolution absurdism and humour fused together to create these forces of untamed creativity. Forces that rejected the rational conscious mind in favour of dream the subconscious subversion love and hidden desire. Within these pages the reader will find the poems of both the dominant and the less well-known protagonists of Dadaism and Surrealism past and present as well as some poems by those who have been closely linked to both movements...Dada came into its own in 1916 at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich where unstructured live performance poetry and music werecombined to create a subversive cultural break from the stifling and destructive mores of the time...Surrealism took up the baton and developed into not only the subversive influence that its predecessor had been but in addition it wished to as André Breton put it: resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality a super-reality or surreality.No other artistic and cultural movements have been as obduratein their desire to change the world and to change reality -both from without and from within... And their beliefin poetry love revolt subversion juxtaposition and dreamcan be seen to be coursing through the veins ofthe poems that have been chosenfor this anthology.In case it is ever forgotten this collection reminds usof the importance of poetry in thestruggle to carve out a more harmonious radical and egalitarian future.