Found in Transition 16-17 (a double issue that appeared in June 1929 in Paris) this modernist manifesto/ proclamation…some of the signers like Harry Crosby, Eugene Jolas (Transition's editor) Kay Boyle, Hart Crane are well known and some like Leigh Hoffman and Douglas Rigby are almost unknown.PROCLAMATION
Tired of the spectacle of short stories, novels, poems and plays still under the hegemony of the banal word, monotonous syntax, static psychology, descriptive naturalism, and desirous of crystallizing a viewpoint….
We hereby declare that:
1. The revolution in the English Language is an accomplished fact.
2. The imagination in search of a fabulous world is autonomous and unconfined.
(Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity…. Blake)
3. Pure poetry is a lyrical absolute that seeks an a priori reality within ourselves alone.
(Bring out number, weight and measure in a year of dearth…. Blake)
