Automatic Writing in Surrealism
The Surrealists were big on this thing called "automatic writing." That's when you write whatever comes to your mind without stopping or structuring your thoughts. You just go with the flow, and let everything pour out onto the page unfiltered.
The Surrealists liked this style of writing because they felt that it led to a more spontaneous, more genuine form of expression. Of course, if us at Shmoop were to pour out whatever came into our heads onto the page and turn it into a poem, it might not be very good. But the Surrealists, in fact, were very good at it. Some of the most famous works of Surrealism are works produced through "automatic writing."
Chew On This
Tristan Tzara loved scribbling poems in "automatic writing" mode. Check out his poem "Volt," which evokes automatic writing.
And here's an imaginary conversation between the writers Georges Bataille, André Breton, and André Masson on automatic writing. It doesn't end well.