Poetism

Poetism () was an artistic program in Czechoslovakia which belongs to the avant-garde; it has never spread abroad. It was invented by members of the avant-garde association Devětsil, mainly Vítězslav Nezval and Karel Teige. It is mainly known in the literature form, but it was also intended as a lifestyle. Its poems were apolitical, optimistic, emotional, and proletaristic, describing ordinary, real things and everyday life, dealing mainly with the present time. It uses no punctuation.

Poetism is an early 20th-century avant-garde literary movement in Czech between the two world wars. Poetism in early phase introduced to Czech art and synthesized Cubo-Futurism, Dadaism and Constructivism. It is a purely Czech artistic movement that mixes and translates the knowledge of other world-wide artistic movements. It embraced all new art instead of being oriented solely toward literature and poetry. It was in the spirit of avant-garde and social utopian theories. It could be interpreted as a particular aspect of European Dadaism, which inspired by primitive and naïve art. It was in the spirit of avant-garde and social utopian theories. Poetist's works are mainly featured by programmatic optimism, playfulness, humour, lyricism, sensuality, imagination, orientation toward pure art, a multiplicity of themes, and emphasis on associations. By redefining a number of areas of life and human activity and also certain para-artistic realms as art, poetism redrew the boundary between life and art. Poetism was usually presented through poetry, drama and painting, which explored the beauty of new technologies innovatively. Artists in Poetism sought to use the avant-garde aesthetics to create things that could be made available to all. The most outstanding works of Poetism are its unique design of letterforms which express the mood of a poem, and the visual design of books expressed as artistic as the poetry itself.