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Poetism was born with the collaboration of several authors from the Devetsil group. It was, above all, our reaction against the governing ideological poetics — a protest against romantic aesthetics and traditionalism and our abandonment of the hitherto dominant precepts of “art.” We sought out in films, the circus, sport, tourism, and in life itself the expressive possibilities which were not to be found in mere pictures and poems. And so is born the picture poem, poetic puzzles and anecdotes, lyrical films. The authors of this experiment: Nezval, Seifert, Voskovec and, if you please, Teige would like to include all the flowering manifestations of poetry — quite detached from literature — and by this we mean the poetry of Sunday afternoons, holiday outings, lively cafes, the intoxication of alcohol, lively tabloids and spa-town promenades and the poetry of quiet, night, calm and peace.
Karel Teige
