Sep
1
“The method is simple. Here is one way to do it. Take a page. Like this page. Now cut down the middle and cross the middle. You have four sections: 1 2 3 4 … one two three four. Now rearrange the sections placing section four with section one and section two with section three. And you have a new page. Sometimes it says much the same thing. Sometimes something quite different — cutting up political speeches is an interesting exercise — in any case you will find that it says something and something quite definite. Take any poet or writer you fancy. Here, say, or poems you have read over many times. The words have lost meaning and life through years of repetition. Now take the poem and type out selected passages. Fill a page with excerpts. Now cut the page. You have a new poem. As many poems as you like. As many Shakespeare Rimbaud poems as you like.”
Burroughs, William S. “The Cut-Up Method of Brion Gysin.” The New Media Reader. 1961. Eds. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2003. 90-91. (via carvalhais)
