Zang Tumb Tumb

"Zang Tumb Tumb" is a sound poem and concrete poem written by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, an Italian futurist. It appeared in excerpts in journals between 1912 and 1914, when it was published as an artist's book. It is an account of the Battle of Adrianople, which he witnessed as a reporter for L’Intransigeant. The poem uses "Parole in Liberta", (words in freedom) -creative typography- and other poetic impressions of the events of the battle, including the sounds of gunfire and explosions. The work is now seen as a seminal work of modernist art, and an enormous influence on the emerging culture of European avant-garde print. [Marinetti, Essay by Carlo Belloli, Oxford Art Online]

" [The] masterpiece of Words-in-freedom and of Marinetti’s literary career was the novel ‘Zang Tumb Tuuum’... the story of the siege by the Bulgarians of Turkish Adrianople in the Balkan War, which Marinetti had witnessed as a war reporter. The dynamic rhythms and onomatopoetic possibilities that the new form offered were made even more effective through the revolutionary use of different typefaces, forms and graphic arrangements and sizes that became a distinctive part of Futurism. In ‘Zang Tumb Tuuum; they are used to express an extraordinary range of different moods and speeds, quite apart from the noise and chaos of battle.... Audiences in London, Berlin and Rome alike were bowled over by the tongue-twisting vitality with which Marinetti declaimed ‘Zang Tumb Tuuum.’ As an extended sound poem it stands as one of the monuments of experimental literature, its telegraphic barrage of nouns, colours, exclamations and directions pouring out in the screeching of trains, the rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire, and the clatter of telegraphic messages" [Tisdall/Bozzola - Futurism] . [ [http://www.vialibri.net/item_pg/1433887.htm Quoted in Via Libri] ]

The poem glorifies war as "the world's only hygiene," mirroring a widespread view amongst European intellectuals at the time. [See for instance the Expressionist Franz Marc, letter to Kandinsky 1914; "This is the only way to clean out the augean stable of Europe, or is there a single person who does not wish that this war might happen?" quoted in Expressionism, Elger, Taschen 1994, p163]

Influence

The poem inspired Luigi Russolo to start experimenting with noise music, and is quoted in his [http://www.obsolete.com/120_years/machines/futurist/art_of_noise.html Manifesto] in 1913, later published in his book "The Art of Noises" in 1916. Sections were reproduced in "Cabaret Voltaire" [ [http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/breakingtherules/2008/03/caberet-voltair.html Stephen Bury, British Library Online] ] , the first journal published by Dada.

The innovative use of typography has influenced a number of artists including Balla [ [http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T005945?q=marinetti&hbutton_search.x=0&hbutton_search.y=0&hbutton_search=search&source=oao_gao&source=oao_t118&source=oao_t234&source=oao_t4&search=quick&pos=8&_start=1#firsthit Oxford Art Online, subscription only] ] , Carra, Boccioni, Hugo Ball and Dada, the Russian futurists [ [http://www.wendtroot.com/spoetry/folder6/ng63.html Italian Futurism Online] ] , the Vorticists including Wyndham Lewis, Guillaume Apollinaire, Blaise Cendrars, Max Jacob [all referenced in Oxford Art Online: Marinetti] , El Lissitsky and Jan Tschichold. The emphasis on what has since become known as concrete poetry [ [http://www.ubu.com/papers/solt/italy.html quoting from Concrete Poetry: A World View (1968, Indiana University Press)] ] has proved a durable and lasting influence on the development of 20^th century art.

The ZTT Records label and the Swedish 80s new wave pop act Zzzang Tumb were named in homage to the poem.

Further reading and listening

* Marinetti, F.T. [http://www.ubu.com/papers/marinetti01.html "Geometric and Mechanical Splendor and the Numerical Sensibility"] from "MARINETTI: Selected Writings" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, translated by R. W. Flint and A. Coppotelli). Excerpted at UbuWeb.

* [http://colophon.com/gallery/futurism/2.html An article on Futurist Books, including 2 double spreads]
* [http://www.arengario.it/futurismo/testi/toniconq.htm An article listing all of Marinetti's books, in Italian]

Notes