Life, 1917-07-12 · page 7 of 40
Life — July 12, 1917 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page presents "Cubist Poems After Gertrude Stein"—a satirical take on modernist literary experimentation. The three short poems parody the abstract, fragmented style of Gertrude Stein's experimental writing. The illustration titled "The Leading Man" depicts outdoorsmen or surveyors with dogs in a landscape, likely mocking how Cubist and modernist art prioritized abstract form over clear narrative or subject matter. The satire targets early 20th-century avant-garde literature and art movements. By pairing nonsensical poems (featuring words like "Wallop, wallop!" and "Flub dub, flubbery dubbery") with a conventionally realistic illustration, Life magazine ridicules the gap between modernists' claims of sophistication and what ordinary readers perceive as meaningless gibberish. The joke: if you strip away modernist pretension, you're left with nothing.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
on ou | eir ut ets me WOODROW WILSON AY T not may I not may I not? Prunes and persimmons pale and placid, pernickety parsnips on a pre- cious portfolio, Daring dove, what is so difficult as a mauve typewriter? Distrust and dis- likableness, doubtless. May I not? Yes, I may not! Cubist Poems After Gertrude Stein THEODORE. ROOSEVELT There is a something a something an everything and a tumultuousness Iam I am slam bang slametty bang bang boom! Wallop, wallop, wallop! Zowie! JOSEPHUS DANIELS A keyhole a keyhole a narrow aper- ture. Smaller than a peanut, smaller than a gnat, smaller than a microcosm, and then some. Flub dub twaddle twaddle. Piffte. flubbery dubbery, twaddle Kenneth L. Roberts. THE LEADING MAN comicbooks.com