In Alice in Wonderland, the Red Queen remembers the future instead of the past. This seemingly nonsensical proposition, like so many elements of the beloved book, is a stroke of philosophical genius by Lewis Carroll, made half a century before the linear conception of time was challenged.
Jacques Prevert's poem Inventory is made up of things, apparently evoked arbitraryly-stones, the sun,pins, armchairs, elephants, racoons...It is the intuitive ordering of images to achieve an emotional effect rather than the reasoned organization of thought.The principle applied by the poet to arrive at these words that defy logic is the same as the principle used by surrealists that is irrational thought and automatic writing. Prevert turns to literary collages and subjective splattering and smearing with words or mocks language which is supposed to portray the "real".
Inventory has no beginning or end
One stone
two houses
three ruins
four gravediggers
one garden
a few flowers
one racoon
a dozen oysters ,one lemon, one loaf of bread
one ray of sunlight
one groundswell
six musicians
one door complete with doormat
one gentleman decorated with the Legion d Honneur
another racoon
one sculptor who sculpts Napoleons
the flower named marigold
two lovers in a large bed
one tax collector one chair three turkey cocks
one cleric one boil
one wasp
one irresolute kidney
one racing stable
one undeserving son two Dominican brothers three grasshoppers one tip-up seat
two ladies of the night one amorous uncle
one mater dolorosa three sugar daddies two Monsieur Seguin goats
one Louis XV heel
one Louis XVI arm chair
one Henry II sideboards two Henry III sideboards three Henry IV sideboards
one discarded drawer
one ball of string two safety pins one elderly gentleman
one Victory of Samothrace one accountant two assistant accounts one man of the world two surgeons three vegetarians
one cannibal
one colonial expedition one entire horse one half pint of good blood one tse tse fly
one lobster American style one garden French style
two potatoes English style
one lorgnette one footman one orphan one iron lung
one day of glory
one week of happiness
one month of Mary
one terrible year
one minute of silence
one second's lack of attention
and....
five or six racoons
Another poem by Prevert is an enigmatic play of words formed by mixing up parts of the poem
Procession
n psychology, “automatism” refers to involuntary actions and processes not under the control of the conscious mind—for example, dreaming, breathing, or a nervous tic. Automatism plays a role in Surrealists techniques such as spontaneous or automatic writing,painting, and drawing; free association of images and words; and collaborative creation though games like Exquisite Corpse. Surrealists were also deeply interested in interpreting dreams as conduits for unspoken feelings and desires. The works explored here did not begin with preconceived notions of a finished product; rather, they were provoked by dreams, or emerged from subconscious associations between images, text, and their meanings.
An old man made of gold with a watch in mourning
An odd job queen with a man of England
And workers of the peace with guardians of the sea
A stuffed hussar with a turkey cock of death
A coffee snake with a rattle-mill
A tightrope hunter with a head dancer
A meerschaum marshal with a retiring pipe
A baby in evening dress with a gentleman in nappies
A jail-composer and a music bird
A collector of conscience with a director of fag ends
A Coligny grinder with an admiral of scissors
A Bengal nun with a tiger of Saint Vincent de Paul
A doctor of porcelain with a repairer of
philosophy
An inspector of the Round Table with knights of
the Paris Gas Company
A duck in Saint Helena with a Napoleon in orange sauce
A curator of Samothrace with a victory at the cemetery
A tug from a large family with a father of the high seas
A member of prostate with a swollen French Academy
A parish horse with a grand circus priest
A pious conductor with a bus boy
A little surgeon with a dental devil
And the general of oysters with an opener of Jesuits
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