Hit the image to be instantly transported to our Amazon portal where you can order yourself a copy of Gerald Janecek's definitive study of Dada's cousin, "Zaum."Zaum (ZA-oom) is more than just a fun word to say. It's a Russian Futurist neologism describing a hard-to-pin-down art movement with an equally hard-to-pin-down translation: "trans-mental," "transrational," "trans-sense," "metalogical" and our favorite, "beyonsense."
The root "um" translates to mind, wit, and intellect. "Za" means "beyond the bounds," "trans" and "on the other side." The two combined describe an innovative school of poetry meant, as author Gerald Janeck puts it, to go "beyond the limits of a locale... like rational, intelligible discourse."
Zaum influenced later groups and movements, such as Pop Art, Nouveau réalisme, and Fluxus.
Finding your interest piqued and your curiosity bubbling? Then check out our book, Zaum: The Transrational Poetry of Russian Futurism, one of the defining works on the movement!
