A slight tangent to my last post: I saw the ICA exhibition Poor. Old. Tired. Horse. last week which reintroduced me to the Concrete Poetry movement in which its practitioners used the visual manifestation of the words to equal effect as the conventional elements of the poem. [Editor Dave also points out to me the correct term for shaped poems is technopaegnia with the most famous example here]. Some of the works such as Sea Poppy 1 by Ian Hamilton Finlay have been painted directly on to the gallery wall.
© Ian Hamilton Finlay
Whilst there are obvious connections to be made in the way in which images have historically (both conventionally and radically) been layed out on pages, my thoughts turned towards the way in which a sequence of images is hung on the wall, in particular Paul Graham’s installation at the Deutsche Boerse Prize at the Photographers Gallery this year. Graham’s works in the show, an excerpt from his 12 book series a shimmer of possibility (2007), rise and fall on the gallery wall in a collection of fleeting verses which force you to move in an out from the wall, and even stoop to see some of the lowest pictures. Images seemingly repeated – but actually incrementally different – also have considerable effect in the reading of the whole work. Graham specifically cites a literary reference for a shimmer of possibilty, Chekov’s short stories, and though not specifically poetry it’s still a good case point in which to consider the other devices at play when presenting both photographs and poems.
© Paul Graham
Technopaegnia seems interesting, clever and worthwhile when shown in the examples that you have given: “Easter wings” by George Herbert and “Sea Poppy 1″ by Ian Hamilton Finlay.
But would you say that there is a limit to how far you can take this process? The examples you have given are relatively subtle in comparison to what could be potentially achieved when creating a piece of Technopaegnia. If I were to write a poem about Barack Obama, and produce the text in a range of sizes and tones in order to create the image of his face with the very words, would that be a step too far? Would that still be Technopaegnia?
Could this method of concrete poetry become over-the-top to the point of silliness?
Hi HCS,
it’s an interesting point. I’ve heard (again from Dave Hawkins) that the subtle thing about Easter Wings is that the wings aren’t perfect. So the poem’s shape actually runs counter in some way to its apparent meaning – or perhaps reinforces its idea of failing as the only true way of approaching the sacred. Either way, it is ambivalent. The relationship between the words and the shape is not linear. I suppose a poem about Barack Obama in the shape of someone else’s face might be more interesting…
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