John Levy

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First of all, no more logic

 . . . the surrealists are not politicians nor scientists, philosophers nor even physicians. They are poets, specialists in language, and it is language they will attack first.
First of all, no more logic. In language especially it must be hunted down, beaten to a pulp, reduced to nothing. There are no more verbs, subjects, complements. There are words that can even mean something other than what they actually say.

 

— Maurice Nadeau, The History of Surrealism

Which dead end will be reincarnated?
          The river above the sound of the river

Question John Levy,  Answer Michelle Tennison (2017)

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A Collective Hunch

. . . for me it came at a time when nothing else seemed to be working. I got the kind of madness Socrates talked about, “A divine release of the soul from the yoke of custom and convention.” I refuse to be intimidated by reality anymore. After all, what is reality anyway? Nothin’ but a collective hunch.

— “Trudy,” played by Lily Tomlin in The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe,  written by Jane Wagner

 

What is Albert Einstein doing on the other side?
          Thunder in a haiku 

Question Michelle Tennison,  Answer John Levy (2017)

 

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Fecund in a New Way: John Levy

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)

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The Verge

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)