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Image Credit: Ubu.com

It seems obvious that sight would be a natural starting point for any analysis of the mixed-mode of expression known as “concrete” or “visual” poetry, in which elements such as typography, pattern, word-arrangement, and text-image juxtaposition replace more conventional techniques of rhyme, syntax, and meter. Over the past week, however, two separate encounters have compelled me to think about how the tactility and transience of this form is possibly more fundamental than its appeal to sight. One of these experiences pertains to my discovery of Ubuweb’s fascinating archive of film in the field of concrete and visual poetics. The other has to do with my subsequent meeting with a local artist and concrete poet, who gave me one of his 3x3 trading card compositions. This unplanned, uncanny coincidence has made me consider how concrete poetry might encourage a shift from the scrutiny of the eye (the surface-depth model of close reading) to the gestures of the hand (holding and retaining, offering and receiving).

Source: telegraph.co.uk

In 1952, Dame Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) announced intentions to translate her own novel Fanfare for Elizabeth (1946) into a Hollywood script. British and American newspapers ran a common story detailing her extravagant costume and monstrous physiognomy at the event: “The statuesque Miss Sitwell appeared in a black gilded cowl (‘I resemble Henry VII strongly—he was an ugly old man’) and a black bombazine floor-length dress, and sported long gilt fingernails. She also wore a topaz ring some two inches square, and her wrists were two huge gold bangles” (TD 49). Click ‘Read More’ to follow the thread of my post on how irony, affect, and materialism provide possible lenses for interpreting the above photograph, which features an icon of English eccentricity and literary modernity across from Marilyn Monroe. 

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