Publication of The Artist's Book
Later in the year Schwitters would publish the poem in an artist's book called Anna Blume, Dichtungen. The original book contains several poems and short stories, including Die Zwiebel (The Onion), a fairy story about the dismemberment of the narrator Alves Bäsenstiel, who, when reassembled, becomes the new King. The book also includes the poems Grünes Kind (Green Child) and Nächte (Nights).
The first edition was published by Verlag Paul Steegemann, Hannover, 1919. The second edition, published in 1920, was exactly the same but for 8 extra pages of adverts. The third edition, published in 1922, was substantially different, however. Noticeably smaller, but with more pages (88 compared to the original's 40) and a plain white sleeve with a pink border, the revised version only included nine of the original twenty pieces. The other twenty seven pieces include English, French and Russian translations of Anna Blume, Le Grande Ardeur de Dada (Marche Funèbre), a brief critique of dada written in French ('Let me explain - dada is the great root of all the little roots...'), and a series of newer poems that would point the way toward Schwitter's later poetic style, using a dramatically reduced vocabulary with heavy repetition. Zwölf (Twelve), for instance, only uses the first eleven numerals to create an eleven line poem. ('One Two Three Four Five / Five Four Three Two One / Two Three Four Five Six / Six Five Four Three Two / Seven Seven Seven Seven Seven......)
The same year, Schwitters also published Memoiren Anna Blumes in Bleie, a book that chronicled and parodied reactions to the original book.
Read more about this topic: An Anna Blume
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“An action is the perfection and publication of thought. A right action seems to fill the eye, and to be related to all nature.”
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“I would rather have as my patron a host of anonymous citizens digging into their own pockets for the price of a book or a magazine than a small body of enlightened and responsible men administering public funds. I would rather chance my personal vision of truth striking home here and there in the chaos of publication that exists than attempt to filter it through a few sets of official, honorably public-spirited scruples.”
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“I think, for the rest of my life, I shall refrain from looking up things. It is the most ravenous time-snatcher I know. You pull one book from the shelf, which carries a hint or a reference that sends you posthaste to another book, and that to successive others. It is incredible, the number of books you hopefully open and disappointedly close, only to take down another with the same result.”
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