Everything leads one to believe that there exists a certain place in the mind (point de l’esprit) where life and death, reality and imagination, past and future, the communicable and the incommunicable, high and low will cease to be perceived in opposition.
— Andre Breton, Second Surrealist Manifesto
When does future begin?
cicadas — everything that
was never really river
never really was
Question Dietmar Tauchner, Answer Michelle Tennison (2017)
All the Things You Said, digital art collage by Josephine R. Unglaub
Is it possible that words themselves have a kind of life force or inherent energetic signature that has been forgotten? According to Maurice Nadeau in The History of Surrealism, Andre Breton attached extreme importance to word games because “they showed that words had their own lives, that they were creators of energy, and that they could henceforth command thought.” (Breton’s words in italics).
What is conversation?
Elephants outfitted for battle
Question Michelle Tennison, Answer Mark Harris (2016)
— Andre Breton, in Nadja
What is the soul of anxiety?
All the light we don’t see
Q&A Session with Paul Cunniff, Sharon Cunniff, Mary Ellen Binkele, and Michelle Tennison (2016)
The mind which plunges into Surrealism relives with burning excitement the best part of childhood.
— Andre Breton
How will I know love?
Going back in time to look through my childhood dresser drawers
Question Harry Hudson, Answer Michelle Tennison (2004)
I madly love everything that adventurously breaks the thread of discursive thought and suddenly ignites a flare illuminating a life of relations fecund in another way.
— Andre Breton
Poet John Levy’s curious questions add an almost Monty Python-like quality to the game. Together with some random answers they do create meaning, albeit of a somewhat cosmically weird kind. Makes me wonder as I go through an ordinary day what else is hiding there.
How does a herd of gaffes disappear?
“The tulips have opened, Love, hurry home!”
What haunts your eraser?
A long exhalation of ferns
What do the weeds sing?
A dark comedy
When does the mind really mind?
The thumping sound of a flat tire
Questions John Levy, Answers Michelle Tennison (2017)
Perhaps the imagination is on the verge of recovering its rights.
— Andre Breton
What divides the light from the darkness?
The warmth of the egg
Q&A Session with Sharon Cunniff, Mary Ellen Binkele, and Michelle Tennison (2011)
What is the meaning of Grace?
I heard you sing in your sleep
Question Harry Hudson, Answer Michelle Tennison (2005)
What thoughts are weightless?
I step out of my mother’s dream
Question John Levy, Answer Michelle Tennison (2017)
Sometimes the game itself transcends logic and seems to tap into another realm, suggesting a transpersonal consciousness at work. The following results from playing the game with Zen practitioner and haiku poet Christopher Herold give a glimpse into the more beautiful side of Surrealism, something Andre Breton called The Marvelous.
I asked Christopher 11 pointed questions, and he answered them, unseen:
What is the past?
The taste of spring water at 12,000 feet
Where is the map?
A brick path’s geometry of moss
What is the mind of God?
The emptiness inside a mirrored ball
What is truth?
This worn out pair of shoes
How do you know you’ve really made it?
The scent of a pine forest on a hot afternoon
What is the one dream?
Bagpipes skirling through a foggy dawn
What is kindness?
The receding tide depositing driftwood on the shore
Where is the nearest exit?
Linear time compressing as death approaches
What will happen when two snowflakes are exactly alike?
Children’s laughter
How can I avoid suffering?
Discovering and letting go of our attachments.
What is deep thinking?
Nothing . . . in particular
Questions Michelle Tennison, Answers Christopher Herold (2017)
A Lit Jellyfish 
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