en el cielo

— si la tinta se esconde para rascarse

a su gusto y no asoma sus morros

entre los flecos [de] XXX XXX

— no es que le tenga

— ni al reflejo que la

mano le indica debajo de

la mesa a las siete de esta tarde que no acaba —

si no el deseo de complicar

el asunto del cuadro

— y no dejarlo

ni tranquilo ni quieto — ni XXX

vestirse de un deseo

de silencio —

— pero la copa desnuda

del mantel> XXX — venus de hielo —

como un cuchillo abierto —

ni grita ya —

solo el columpio XXX en el jardín va midiendo su tristeza

si estrepitoso se consume de fuego a voluntad en el cielo

y le clava miles de banderillas — si la tinta se esconde

para rascarse a su gusto la sarna y no asoma sus

morros entre los flecos de tijeras en movimiento —

no es que le tenga miedo a subir la escalera a la luz del

papel la palmerita — ni al reflejo tan torcido

que da pena y que la mano falsamente le indica para

engañarlo XXX [cuando estira el reloj] las siete de esta tarde que no

acaba — si no el deseo de complicar el asunto

del cuadro — y no dejarlo ni tranquilo ni quieto

un momento — ni vestirse de un deseo de silencio —

pero la copa desnuda flotando encima de la espuma

rojiza del mantel — venus de hielo en su boca

— como un cuchillo abierto — ni grita ya —

solo el columpio en el fondo del jardín va midiendo

su tristeza —

a la una menos veinte de la noche

los cojones de mi abuela

son patatas con tomates

silba puñeta tu culo

hoy 9 de Diciembre

de este año que es

el 1.935

l’amer liquide que distille le bleu roi qu’enfarine le carré qui comprime le lait qui trait]

le vert de la persienne XXX du lilas jeté XXX sur le mur

[courant autour de la maison se chauffant au soleil sur les pierres bloque son

compte et fixe XXX dans quelques mots gentils entendus XXX

XXX écossés et habillés de neuf

la coupe et la façon XXX du comble de la fidèle ressemblance que [le]

XXX duvet et la laine

de l’agneau égorgé XXX aux ailes brisées par les coups de fouet

XXX de XXX la couleur saupoudrée par le parfum XXX [du rose]

XXX [somnambule filant]

[de toute la vitesse de ses doigts le coton des armures clouées sur le mauve

supportant toute la responsabilité

du coup marqué et toutes les conséquences qu’aux feux des portes et fenêtres

et à l’eau qui l’illumine XXX [garde encore sur son dos la trace de ses morsures bien visibles]]

As was the case with papier collés, lexical items in Picasso’s poems do not lose their physical presence as they enter the realm of signification; they are equally valid as material elements, providing tonality and rhythm to the lines of the poem, as the color and texture of the pasted papers did in the cubist composition. The way in which his words are potentially combined in the writing/reading process crucially depends on their visual distribution on the page, and this in turn is emphasized by the graphic elements Picasso includes. The paradox of papier collés imposed a reality in imagery abstracted from reality. But this was a reality that was created—a conception and not always a perception. We will see that the artist pursues a similar goal with his poetry.

Rothenberg & Joris cite Bernadac, who brings to our attention how Picasso uses “this new ‘plastic material’ [of language] ... chipping, pulverizing, modeling this ‘verbal clay,’ varying combinations of phrases, combining words, either by phonic opposition, repetition, or by an audacious metaphorical system, the seeming absurdity of which corresponds in fact to an internal and personal logic ... Lawless writing, disregardful of syntax or rationality, but which follows the incessant string of images and sensations that passed through his head … [One observes] various rearrangements of words and phrases from one text to another, “as if he were moving paper cutouts in a painting or drawing.”

Incidentally, also similar to his artistic practice, is Picasso’s tendency to use any support he had handy to jot down his poems: from letterhead to envelopes, from sheets of colored paper to pieces cut out of a newspaper, even toilet paper. But on rare occasions, he used sheets of Arches paper, a support he was particularly fond of and which he also used for his drawings at that same time: “Luckily, he says, I was able to get my hands on a stock of splendid Japanese paper. This paper seduced me … It is so thick that, even by scratching it, you barely touch its deep layers.”

One could then easily imagine that Picasso’s manuscripts would be teeming with sketches and all sorts of colorful enhancements. However, there are only a few of those manuscripts that are accompanied by drawings or engravings. The majority of them exclusively display texts crossed out and rewritten many times as one would expect from a writer’s draft. Indeed, it is surprising, from the point of view of the genesis of the work that any effort at pictorial representation was set aside. The marks he scribbled on the sides are marginal indexical elements intended to indicate the adjunctive nature of the text they serve to identify. Yet, this does not take way from the aesthetic value of those manuscripts, which can be enjoyed as much for their striking visual appearance as for the content of their text.

8. Writing Badly

Rothenberg & Joris have pointed out how Picasso purposely practiced a complete obliteration of punctuation marks. This gives his poems the feel of a wide-open field, a smooth, non-striated space, or blocks of space, through or along which one can travel unchecked, free to choose one’s own moment of rest, free to create one’s own rhythms of reading—an exhilarating and liberating, dizzying and breathtaking dérive. His texts indeed have their own dynamic, which does not conform to pre-established orthographic or grammatical rules: there are no punctuations, spelling remains unchecked, a subordinate condition is rarely followed by its main clause, a raised question is left suspended, a sentence is stopped by another which intersperses its meaning. Picasso ironically advocates for writing “poorly done.” He was quoted as saying: “If only one could write wrong! Today writers have limited themselves to moving around words somewhat while respecting the syntax. It would be necessary to have a perfect knowledge of semantics and to write badly.”

Language is, by nature, a system of conventions that guarantees communication, but the ideal of modern art tends to be the opposite. It requires singularizing, breaking conventions in order to surprise, breaking expectations. “La surprise est le plus grand ressort nouveau”, Apollinaire had declared in 1918 (L’esprit noveau). Picasso indeed grasps the true nature of literature which seeks to push the boundaries of verbal communication, thus inventing a new language within language by creating a “new” syntax. Caparrós comments that it is about not using anything in a strict literal sense, so that the familiar becomes strange. Only in this way does the aesthetic experience acquire its full value and, what is more important, allows us to contemplate reality with clean eyes. In Picasso’s view, style manages to dilute our attention on the how without paying attention to the what. “Writing badly,” from this perspective, is the most effective way to dispel such mirages and be able to directly reach the meanings.

To “write badly” in the sense proposed above one would have to rely more deeply on lexical semantics, that is, one would have to be familiar with the rich meanings of words and their multiple connotations. Picasso wanted to free himself from “the tyranny of language,” but this is truly impossible. After all, we share a language because we all share the same recursive minimal system. The only possible transgression is to let meaning flow through the cracks of syntax.

9. Adjunctive Writing

As pointed out in Mallen [28], the text that Picasso introduces with graphic insertions is purposely left differentiated (often placed at a different level, or in the margins, etc.), as if they were footnoted “afterthoughts” to the already validated text. In fact, it is sometimes quite a task for the editor of these poems to decide exactly where the added text must be incorporated, as the writer intentionally leaves this detail ambiguous. The reader is equally left to choose whether to follow the suggested insertions or to continue with the original text, ignoring the later additions.

si [_AP estrepitoso] el tambor se consume de fuego [_PP a voluntad] en el cielo]

[_CP y le clava miles de banderillas]

— [_CP si la tinta se esconde para rascarse

a su gusto [_NP la sarna] y no asoma sus morros]

entre los flecos [_PP de] XXX [_NP tijeras en movimiento] XXX

— no es que le tenga

miedo [_CP a subir la escalera] a la luz del papel [_NP la palmerita]

— ni al reflejo [_AP tan torcido que da pena] que la

mano [_AP falsamente] le indica debajo de

la mesa [_CP para engañarlo] [_PP a las siete de esta tarde que no acaba] —

si no el deseo de complicar]

el asunto del cuadro

— y no dejarlo

ni tranquilo ni quieto [_NP un momento] — ni XXX

vestirse de un deseo

de silencio —

— pero la copa desnuda [_VP flotando encima de la espuma rojiza

del mantel] XXX — venus de hielo [_PP en su boca] —

como un cuchillo abierto —

ni grita ya —

solo el columpio XXX [_PP en el [_NP fondo del] jardín va midiendo su tristeza]

si estrepitoso [_NP el tambor] se consume de fuego a voluntad en el cielo

y le clava miles de banderillas — si la tinta se esconde

para rascarse a su gusto la sarna y no asoma sus

morros entre los flecos de tijeras en movimiento —

no es que le tenga miedo a subir la escalera a la luz del

papel la palmerita — ni al reflejo tan torcido

que da pena y que la mano falsamente le indica [_PP debajo de la mesa] para

engañarlo XXX [_CP cuando estira el reloj] las siete de esta tarde que no

acaba — si no el deseo de complicar el asunto

del cuadro — y no dejarlo ni tranquilo ni quieto

un momento — ni vestirse de un deseo de silencio —

pero la copa desnuda flotando encima de la espuma

rojiza del mantel — venus de hielo en su boca

— como un cuchillo abierto — ni grita ya —

solo el columpio en el fondo del jardín va midiendo

su tristeza —

a la una menos veinte de la noche

los cojones de mi abuela

son patatas con tomates

silba puñeta tu culo

hoy 9 de Diciembre

de este año que es

el 1.935

[_NP l’amer liquide que distille le bleu roi qu’enfarine le carré qui comprime le lait qui trait]

[_NP le vert de la persienne] XXX [_PP du lilas jeté] XXX [_PP sur le mur]

[_VP courant autour de la maison se chauffant au soleil sur les pierres bloque son

compte] [_CP et fixe XXX [_PP dans quelques mots gentils entendus]] XXX

XXX [_AP écossés et habillés de neuf]

la coupe et la façon XXX [_PP du comble de la fidèle ressemblance que [_DP le]

XXX [_NP duvet] et [_NP la laine]

[_PP de l’agneau égorgé] XXX [_PP aux ailes brisées par les coups de fouet]

XXX de XXX [_NP la couleur saupoudrée par le parfum] XXX [_PP du rose]

XXX [_AP somnambule filant]

[_PP de toute la vitesse de ses doigts le coton [_PP de l’acier] des armures clouées sur

le mauve supportant toute la responsabilité

[_PP du coup marqué et toutes les conséquences qu’aux feux des portes et fenêtres

et à l’ eau qui l’ illumine XXX [_VP garde encore sur son dos la trace de ses morsures bien visibles]]

Phrases link to each other in fluctuant, reversible attachments, intentionally left tentative and ambiguous, open to potential deletions and insertions as the poems undergo revisions, just as pieces of pasted paper were precariously pinned to the support in the cubist papier collé and were left opened to the possibility of being removed. What is even more fascinating is that the grammatical function of these inserts tends to be adjunctive. Thus, Picasso seems to be indicating that there is a preeminence of information-based processing over syntactic processing, as the attachment of new elements creates ambiguity and displaces the topic of discourse.

The core principles or rather the practical engines of those words in the poem are a nonstop process of connectivity and heterogeneity along the entire semiotic chains of the text, the characteristics of rhizomatic writing. The way this plays itself out in Picasso’s poems can be traced not only in the heterogeneity of the objects, affects, phenomena, concepts, sensations, vocabularies etcetera that can and do enter the writing at any given point, but mainly at the level of the assembling of these heterogeneities: eschewing syntax and its hierarchical clausal structures, the writing jumps back and forth through paratactic relations between terms on a “plane of consistency” that produce concatenations held together (and simultaneously separated) either by pure mental and spatial metonymical juxtapositions enhanced by the endless play of connectors/separators.

In standard sentence construction, languages clearly identify expressions as selected arguments by positional or morphological marking. This identification is critical to determine how they relate to the main predicate of a sentence. By contrast, adjuncts tend not be selected by the nucleus of the sentence. In current syntactic theory, adjuncts are modifiers which freely attach at a separate level than arguments in the sentence structure and provide circumstantial information pertaining to the nucleus of the phrase and its relation to both its complement and specifier. Ernst [15] argues that the major determinant of an adjunct’s distribution is the aggregate effect of its lexicosemantic representation and the way it combines with other semantic elements. This means that the lexical entry for an adjunct may be underspecified, so that it may interact with different semantic objects according to different compositional rules, producing the typical ambiguities. He does assume that adjuncts may sometimes select for a specific type of semantic argument, namely, a proposition or an event (as well as a possible second argument), with particular additional properties. The object thus formed by compounding the adjunct and its argument would also be of a particular semantic type. When semantic composition takes place, all lexicosemantic requirements are fulfilled and the sentence is parsed as grammatical.

In Picasso’s writing, we see that the different adjunct phrases interact with other constituents in the poem in strings of metaphoric combinations, often contradictory, in the two selected poems, for instance, relating both to a bullfight spectacle and the act of writing itself. The apparently random attachment of adjunctive phrases in his poems generate a range of heterogeneous interpretations which is triggered by numerous, reversible interconnections between the lexical items heading those phrases. Multiple phrasal constituents are combined and left “unattached” for the reader to interpret. The interpretation is directed by a chain of semantic coindexations which is characterized by its multidirectional instability, as any of the terms in the chain could become its head.

en el cielo ₁

— si la tinta se esconde para rascarse

a su gusto y no asoma sus morros

entre los flecos₂ [de] XXX ₂ XXX

— no es que le tenga₁/₃

— ni al reflejo_{4 4} que la

mano_{5 5} le indica debajo de

la mesa ₅ a las siete de esta tarde que no acaba —

[_NP l’amer liquide que distille le bleu roi qu’enfarine le carré qui comprime le lait qui trait]₁

[_NP le vert de la persienne]₁ XXX [_PP du lilas jeté]₁ XXX [_PP sur le mur]

[_VP courant autour de la maison se chauffant au soleil sur les pierres bloque son

compte]₁ [_CP et fixe XXX [_PP dans [_NP quelques mots gentils entendus]₂] XXX

XXX [_AP écossés et habillés de neuf]₂

As Gutiérrez-Rexach notes, a tension emerges in the connection between syntactic and semantic ambiguity. Adding new terms creates a potential new parsing or syntactic analysis of the sequence that modifies or contradicts the interpretation of the previous parsing. Sabartés, who witnessed the creation of many of these texts, noted the kaleidoscopic impression provided by Picasso’s writings, which he attributes to the same desire that presides in his artistic work, namely to relate and interpret most of the things he knows. His descriptions, starting from a reality or an image, set in motion a mechanism through which new relationships arise. Pablo’s companion, Françoise Gilot noted that he was interested in establishing relationships that are little attended to among all the things he names. He is not guided by harmony, but precisely by the tension between things. It is about putting everything in motion, through opposing forces: “What interests me is to set up what you might call the rapports de grand écart—the most unexpected relationship possible between the things I want to speak about, because there is a certain difficulty in establishing the relationships in just that way, and in that difficulty there is an interest, and in that interest there’s a certain tension and for me that tension is a lot more important than the stable equilibrium of harmony, which doesn’t interest me at all.” Breton was aware as well—or seems to have been—that the actual process of the poems was not linear—all moving in the same direction—but that the written—the handwritten—works were circular or else, like palimpsests, were reaching out in all directions.

A very salient constant in Picasso’s poetry is the accumulation of images. This can certainly be related to the collage techniques common in Cubism but, again, goes beyond a mere transposition of a technique from one creative realm to another. In line with the overarching goal of creating new dimensions of reality, images are connected by syntactic accumulation, challenging the reader to find the relevant connective thread or just even a common thread. Images are sometimes loosely connected by intersecting semantic fields or cognitively evoking powerful metaphors.

In the end, what we find is a dance of language rather than of the things to which the words allude. He writes: “A wave that never tires of foaming at the surface, like color or like a rainbow of colors with names (it seems) spoken almost lovingly. A risky procession of disparate objects designated by words, but which, despite the intensity of their presence, are only words, billiard balls that roll and bump, launched regularly into absurd adventures, free reining only at the level of utterance, which seems to vouch for and refer to a reality, one that eventually becomes confusingly inane. A kind of psalmody in which the impossible is often signified, in which only the clusters of vocables count, brought into play and calling to each other, occasionally to the point of attack. To virtually make happen that which reasonably could not, but which takes form thanks to an assertion that must, one might say, be believed at its word; such is the astounding power with which we find this type of writing, at each instant, to be gifted.”

Creating three-dimensionality from a two-dimensional surface had been one of the main goals of Cubism in painting. In poetry, Picasso carries this concern one step further, to a higher level of abstraction. In his poetry, we move from the three-dimensional space and the three dimensions of spatial perception to the many-dimensionality of the propositional or conceptual space, the space of meaning. As Gutiérrez-Rexach reminds us, recent trends such as Potts [34] advocate the idea of decomposing meaning in different layers, each with its own nature and requirements. Wittgenstein states in his notebooks that distrust of grammar is the first condition for philosophizing. Well, something similar is found in Picasso’s literary writing.

10. Syntax in Suspension

To use an expression Michaël cites from Deluze, in Picasso “language is seized with a delirium, which makes it precisely emerge from its furrows,” thus breaking the coherences dictated by the rules of syntax. In Picasso, we appreciate an attempt to use available syntactic rules and conventions to put the syntax in suspension thus gaining full expressivity. Words are inserted and left hanging in the poem, displayed on top of a line or on the margins. This is not just a typographical trick to suggest a certain shape or form. The insertions (and omissions) create grammatical multi-dimensionality at the syntactic and semantic levels. One immediate effect of this strategy is the multiplication of the conceptual space, creating the possibility of several interpretations. By adding or suppressing words or phrases, Picasso managed to change the meaning of a structure, multiplying its denotative and connotative content.

What Picasso seems to be hinting at is the impossibility of univocal parsing or the preponderance of massive ambiguity. We know that human languages differ from logical and mathematical languages in allowing ambiguity. Syntax conspires with other grammatical means (prosody, intonation) to avoid such ambiguity. Picasso seems to be telling us that we need to force syntax to fail in order to reach a poetic stage, free of the strictures of unambiguous parsing. Adding new terms multiplies syntactic complexity and makes the syntactic derivation “crash”, in Chomsky’s [9] terms. Meaning has to be rescued from the ashes of such syntactic failure. Sometimes recovering meaning is not possible and the sequence appears to be almost non-sensical, from a conventional or standard semantic/logical point of view. Alternatively, the reader may become lost in a galaxy or constellation of potential interpretations, for which conventional syntax has ceased to be a guide. In this respect, As Gutiérrez-Rexach has noted, Picasso would question the logician Willard Quine’s famous statement “meaning grows on the grammar tree”. For Picasso, meaning grows through mechanisms allowed by the adjoined elements in the grammar tree. A new realm of meaning, beyond the logical or linguistic meaning, emerges when the parsing of the syntax is put in suspension.

Following Jackendoff and Wittenberg [20], we assume that the complex linguistic configurations in Picasso’s surrealist poetry display many symptoms of lower levels of linguistic hierarchy. More concretely, we can adopt an autonomous semantic interpretation for these appositive structures that go along with those propose by the Simpler Syntax Hypothesis of Culicover [12] and Culicover and Jackendoff [13]:

Autonomous Semantics

Phrase and sentence meanings are composed from the meanings of the words plus independent principles for constructing meanings, only some of which correlate with syntactic structure.

Simpler Syntax Hypothesis (SSH)

Syntactic structure is only as complex as it needs to be to guide interpretation. The most explanatory theory is one that imputes the minimum syntactic structure necessary to mediate between phonology and meaning.

The Simpler Syntax Hypothesis entails a view of the syntax–semantics interface that differs significantly from the standard view of Fregean compositionality. Simpler Syntax contends that syntactic structure is only as complex as it needs to be to guide interpretation; it does not hold to the stricter standard view that every aspect of interpretation corresponds to some distinct basic element in the configuration. It also promotes the view that some meaning is strictly compositional and some is constructional. Thus, some cases of parataxis need not be located in a particular syntactic element, but may be a property of the syntactic configuration as a whole.

11. Compositionality

As Michaël has pointed out, for Picasso writing to a combinatorial practice. In other words, Picasso uses connecting elements and insertions intended to serve as markers simultaneously separating and combining different conceptual domains that reach an alternative dimension as they come in contact. Picasso combined words as he did with numbers, changing their arrangements, using them as elements that are both independent but which make sense in the series as a whole. One of the main tenets of linguistic interpretation is the principle of compositionality, stated explicitly by the German logician Gottlob Frege. This principle states that the meaning of a sequence or expression is a function from the meaning of its parts and the way in which they are combined. It is alleged to be a core principle of the composition of meaning both in logical and in natural languages, after the work of Richard Montague and his followers. In his pursuit of a new language, capable of denoting new semantic realms or realities, Picasso deliberately plays with the compositionality principle. More specifically, he seems to go from compositionality to multicompositionality, where items are allowed to combine almost freely, giving rise to multiple interpretations.

The lines of text connect different semantic fields or mental spaces in Fauconnier’s [17] terms. Together they represent the free flow of ideas in the poet’s mind before writing. Images belonging to one space or field become mixed with other images from another field. The intruding images became predominant, and the outcome is a new dominant field or space which, in turn, is also intruded upon by images from another mental space. Thus, image transition is displayed like a chain or domino of concatenating spaces.

It seems clear that Picasso appreciates in language the ability to transport us to the conceptual domain beyond the purely referential. TO SAY, written in capital letters, or its equivalent name, become at this point the painter’s goal: “Je veux DIRE le nu. Je ne veux pas faire un nu comme un nu. Je veux seulement DIRE sein, DIRE pied, DIRE main, ventre. Trouver le moyen de le DIRE, et ça suffit. Je ne veux pas peindre le nu de la tête aux pieds. Mais arriver à DIRE. Voilà ce que je veux. Un seul mot suffit quand on en parle. Ici, un seul regard, et le nu te dit ce qu’il est, sans phrases ... Il faut que tu donnes à celui qui regarde le moyen de faire le nu lui-même avec ses yeux.”

There is no shortage of verbs in his poems, generally in a paratactic function or free of hierarchies, but what dominates our attention is the accumulation of appositive constituents in long enumerations, the diversification of things (nouns) that revolve around certain fields. The predominance of these nominal goes together with a rejection of the narrative and the descriptive, that is, from the verbal and the adjectival. We could identify it with the chose signifiée, which is consolidated as the building key, capable of evoking the object. It is not the external referent, the objective thing, but its artistic correlate that plays a crucial role, that is, the poetic signified. Once again Picasso imposes a distance between the real object and the created object as he did in Cubism. Where named things manage to unfold their truth is not under the conditions imposed by nature, but in the free medium of the poem.

As Picasso recognized, the juggling of syntactic constituents only serves to enhance the semantic interconnections between words in his poems: “Only I have not yet managed to use words without depending on their meaning.” He admitted that he had prepared for his poems “a palette of words” as he set about composing his texts. He was fully aware of the polysemy of words: “Blue. What does blue mean? There are thousands of sensations that we call blue. The blue of the packet of Gauloises … in this case we can say that the eyes are a Gauloises blue, or on the contrary, as we do in Paris, we can say that a steak is blue when we want to say red. This is what I often did when I tried to write poems.” In his poems, he tried to take advantage of this fact, freeing his words from the standard syntactic use without worrying that this would lead to a distortion of ordinary language, because the final goal was precisely to have “reality … torn apart in every sense of the word.”