Slap in the Face of Public Taste
“We order that the poets’ rights be revered:
- To enlarge the scope of the poet’s vocabulary with arbitrary and derivative words (Word-novelty).
- To feel an insurmountable hatred for the language existing before their time.
- To push with horror off their proud brow the Wreath of cheap fame that You have made from bathhouse switches.
- To stand on the rock of the word “we” amidst the sea of boos and outrage.
And if for the time being the filthy stigmas of your “common sense” and “good taste” are still present in our lines, troche these same lines for the first time already glimmer with the Summer Lightning of the New Coming Beauty of the Self-sufficient (self-centered) Word.”
— 1917 David Burliuk, salve Alexander Kruchenykh, Vladimir Mayakovsky and Victor Khlebnikov. From A Slap in the Face of Public Taste, one of the few non-Italian authored Futurist manifestos.