Cut-Up, Kushnir, and “Cut Up Online Dictionary”
“Cut Up Online Dictionary” is a Kushnir-inspired experiment in the reuse and rearrangement of existing language. Rather than beginning with original sentences, the poem takes dictionary definitions as its source material. Each definition is stopped at a selected word, and that word becomes the subject of the next entry. The resulting chain moves through terms such as “cut,” “instrument,” “music,” “sound,” “auditory,” “through,” “of,” and “to.” A second sequence begins with “up” and proceeds through “level,” “condition,” “requirement,” “necessity,” “need,” “necessary,” and “essential.”
This process qualifies as a cut-up technique because the dictionary’s language is removed from its original informational setting, divided at deliberate points, and recombined into a new sequence. The work is not a random rearrangement, but randomness is not necessary for all forms of cut-up. Here, the cutting follows a rule: the unfinished definition points toward the next word. The dictionary therefore becomes both the source and the mechanism of the poem.
The form is especially appropriate because the poem cuts up the definitions of the words “cut” and “up.” It does not merely describe the method; it performs it. Complete explanations are interrupted, leaving the reader suspended between one entry and the next. The dictionary’s apparent authority is weakened because every definition depends on additional words that also require definition.
The closing loops deepen this effect. “Of” refers the reader back to a prior definition of “of,” while “necessary” eventually returns to “necessary.” These circular references reveal that language cannot always provide a final, self-contained explanation. Words lead to other words, and meaning remains dependent on relationship, repetition, and context.
This recursive quality connects the poem with Pavel Kushnir’s broader interest in linguistic liberation. In Kushnir-inspired writing, language is not treated as a fixed system that the reader must completely master. Fragments can be encountered through rhythm, pattern, interruption, and association. Understanding develops through participation rather than total control.
“Cut Up Online Dictionary” may therefore be described as a recursive lexicographic cut-up poem. It transforms a reference source into poetry by interrupting definitions and linking their fragments into an unexpected structure. The new meaning does not belong to any single dictionary entry. It emerges from the cuts between them.

Cut Up Online Dictionary

Cut: to penetrate with or as if with an edged
Instrument: device used to produce
Music: vocal, instrumental, or mechanical
Sound: a particular
Auditory: of, relating to, or experienced
Through: by way
Of: relating
To:
Before: forward
Of: See Prior Definition of Of.

Up: into a higher position or
Level: horizontal
Condition: an environmental
Requirement:
Necessity: the quality or state of being in
Need:
Necessary:
Essential: something
Necessary: See Prior Definition of Necessary