For any number of reasons--not the least of which is the fact that it taught me how to violate language in my own work--the below poem is one of my favorites. And while, yes, it's a translation, it's still quite a ride.
Incantation by Laughter
by Velimir Khlebnikov transliterated by Gary Kern
O laugh it out, you laughsters!
O laugh it up, you laughsters!
So they laugh with laughters, so they laugherize delaughly.
O laugh it up belaughably!
O the laughingstock of the laughed upon–the laugh of
Belaughed laughsters!
O laugh it out roundlaughingly, the laugh of laughed-at
Laughians!
Laugherino, laugherino,
Laughify, laughicate, laugholets, laugholets,
Laughikins, laughikins,
O laugh it out, you laughsters!
O laugh it up, you laughsters!
According to Khlebnikov poetry aspires to zaum, what he describes as a "universal beyonsense." As Marjorie Perloff describes it in her book 21st Century Modernism: The "New" Poetics, zaum is based "less on 'non-sense' onomatopoeia than on elaborate etymology... phonemic and morphemic play" which can "produce a poetic language beyond (za) mind or reason (um)."
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