Excerpt from “Characteristics of the New Amplic Phase in Poetry” – the Letterist Manifesto
“By emphasizing again the sound value of poetry, words in their printed form will not have any meaning that people need to labor over deciphering. Consonants will become empty, purely auditory, simple lines having physical meaning only in the listener’s ears. By placing value on effects beyond their usual meaning (in words), poetry will create a new sensitivity. In the place of the cerebral beauty that was created in the chiseling style of poetry, one responds simply with direct auditory understanding. It is then a matter of discovering the unknown abundance of purely oral constructions; of untangling the intangible accents in vocabulary. Poetry is thus liberated from all prose (reading for meaning without regard for tones), to become an instrument of lyrical communication. Poetry realizes its mission which is precisely to broadcast local imperceptibilities and applied suggestions, because poetry was created by individuals who wanted to understand each other, sensing the linguistic vibrations against their palates. Verse is the result of a need to consider the phonetic effects produced in other people’s imaginations. Letterism intends to introduce this beauty, which is limited in the present system of oral communication by lack of rules and even of letters. This is why it is necessary to regulate the stability of auditory frequencies by constructing elements specially designed for the purpose. It is a matter of enriching the possibilities for denoting the changes that occur between sound values. These particles of language, still inferior and unexpressed, must acquire proper signs so that they can develop in their own category, the auditory.”
Isidore Isou
PoetryFilm 