Futurism was a movement that tried to reinvent life. The celebration of technology and the machine seen in Futurist art also existed in Futurist poetry. The Futurist Literary Theory wanted to increase the expressivity of language. Futurist poets wanted to project words like bullets.

The Futurist 'mots in liberta' poetry contained no adjectives, adverbs, finite verbs, punctuation or anything that would slow it down. It was mostly groups of nouns and attempted to create an uninterrupted sequence of images.

Their 'parole in liberta' (words in liberty) poetry functioned basically with the use of onomatopoeia. Though not strictly sound poetry like the 'mots in liberta' poetry, 'parole in liberta' also explored sound as a primal source.

The four basic types of onomatopoeia in the 'parole in liberta' poetry were defined by the Futurists;
Realistic,
Analogical,
Abstract (the 'sound of a state of mind') and
Psychic harmony (the fusion of two or three of the abstract representations).


This fourth type approached the kind of phonetic poetry that the Dadaists would later develop.

The use of noise in Futurism influenced the painter Luigi Russolo, who invented an 'Art of noise' which influenced succeeding generations.

Performances of Futurist poetry were meant to instil a sense of dynamism in an audience, energising them. This was in a time when poetry was performed to the rich in cultured dining rooms, serving fine wine and caviar. The usual poet was a romantic with slicked back hair, attempting to capture contempory poetic affections while pretending to be an Oscar Wilde clone, complete with a dead lily.

However the Futurists were rebels, intent on destroying cultivated aesthetics. The readings were open to anyone and frequently ended up in riots. Often several members of the audience would end up in hospital and the Futurists in the local jail.