Well maybe I am still so confused, just a little...

[Akeith (Gray)]

I agree with you, Your Royal Thatness, that poetry should engage all the senses, just as any art form should engage all the senses. Usually (I think) a painting or sketch or other things of that genre tend to be created for a visual inspection. One does not sit in a museum and listen to a Rembrandt or a Picasso or go to a gallery to listen to what a sculpture has to say.

A poem (in my opinion) engages the five senses with the words that are used by the poet. Poetry comes from the tradition of passing along oral history from one generation to another, before written language was involved. Poetry is the original tool of histrorians and consequently, contemporary poetry maintains the basic elements of its origins.

I do not think reformatting the words on a page necessarily engages the senses in a different way, other than perhaps the sense of sight. If it is engaging the sense of sight differently, then it becomes like a picture or painting or sketch or photograph, etc. The formatting is for the sake of the visual effect alone.

[thatollie]

I have sat for many hours listening to what a sculpture has to say, but that is besides the point.

Let me ask you, which do you consider a finer piece of art? [I'm talking strictly opinion]

x donottryto
o              p
b              u
a  n  i  e m t

or

Do not try
to put me in a box.

[Akeith (Gray)]

Did the lips of the sculture move when it spoke? Did it have lips? Have you been gettiing into my drug lockbox again?

I find it difficult to say which is a finer piece of art, since your examples are two different types of art forms (if any at all). For me, it is like being asked which is a finer piece of fruit, an apple or an orange. Clearly both are fruit and both can be fine (if picked at the right time), but what is not so clear is which is finer.

So, I can not really answer your question.

[thatollie]

Nope, it's lips didn't move. No, I haven't been in your stash either. And personally I consider oranges finer than apples. But none of that has anything to do with this topic.

Art is art is art, plain and simple. Poetry is an art as is sketching.
Art is choice, which do you think is a more meaningful choice, the stanza or the box?

[eric]

well, gee. gray, as you know i love to tell you you're completely wrong, but once again i get to do that.  the yamrus poem engages the visual senses  in an obvious way, it engages the sonics in the way i described above, it engages the mind in several ways, only one of which is mentioned above, and it engages the feelings in your toes in an as yet undefined manner.  you are wrong that a poem is intrinsically about its sound ... read my definiton ... while a poem is essentially a spoken thing, it is not intrinsically a spoken thing.  yes i know, i contradict myself.  either whitman or george bernard shaw put that right  ... and you are wrong about something else, but i forget what it is.  i will not repeat my questions for you, and if this is not enough reason to jump off the cliff, i don't know what is.  goodbye, i have a flying lesson to attend.

[Jade]

I just had a flash go off in my head. Dangerous, very very dangerous, I know.

When the "Six Poets at the Six Gallery"- reading in 1955 was the catalyst that dramatically revealed what Allen Ginsberg later described as 'the natural affinity of modes of thought', where the complete audience knew 'at the deepest level that a human voice and body has been hurled against a harsh wall', (in my opinion one of the most groundbreaking moments in the history of poetry) could a concrete poem have the same effect?

What will happen to poetry readings? The performer at a reading cannot be every person in the audience, now can it?

Please call 911, I feel rather faint....

PS . BTW - that reading was the 'Howl' - very powerful.

[Akeith (Gray)]

I'll have to dust my wings...but I'll catch up with you later, then, eric. Be careful up there and please be sure and not cut yourself on the edge. 

I suppose that art is art, thatollie, and a poem is about the sound and sight both. So, when pictures become poems and start moving with sound...oh, wait, that has happened already. So, when pictures become poems and poems become pictures, I may be forced to give up eating apples. Oranges are for drinking, anyway.

Gray

(...P.S...eric finally saw through the B.S., even if it was just a straight line of it... )

[Akeith (Gray)]

That's a good question about the reading, Jade.

Any takers? eric? ollie?

[eric]

Okay, Jade, that's a point well taken.  This is the exact other side of it, and of what I said--that most poems, great poems, are  essentially written to be spoke aloud, and that great moment you describe where Ginsburg made one off the very ledge I mentioned is a perfect example of this.  So a concrete poem will not get there, not at least any of the ones I know.  But neither will most other poems ... or certainly most other moments.  I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness ...

that was genius.  and he was pretty good at jacks, too.

[Mark H]

Gray

As you are so keen on the reading out loud aspect, I dug this out for you. I was experimenting with a radical new form of poetry I called puncuoetry. I really think you will enjoy it.

http://www.mywriterscircle.com/index.php?topic=10115.0

Mark

[Akeith (Gray)]

Begin quote:

#!/sbin/korn
$peots = null;

would read,

sh’bang slash, spin, slash korn.
Poets get null splat.

End quote.


Mark,

Your example is something wonderful. I have not seen this type of writing before, not since the linquistist class I took during my university years.

It is an interesting puzzle you have presented, in my opinion. You have substituted one set of symbols for another set, while maintaining both have the same sounds, regardless who reads them (based of course on your instructions). In other words, if I read the red symbols above outloud or the blue symbols outloud, they would  (or should) sound the same. Therefore, the visual aspect of the symbols (or words on the page) are like a picture puzzle to solve. On the other hand, once the puzzled is solved, the symbols sound the same.

Red = Blue when heard. Do they then equal the same when read silently?

Thanks for sharing.

Gray

[eric]

The only problem is that Mark's experiment was a hoax.  So either he's fooling you or you're fooling everbody else.  And there never has been a college course on linquistist since the world began.   In all other respects, I am sure you guys are onto something.  But excuse me, the edge is calling again.

[thatollie]

This is not
concrete p
oetry beca
use the str
ucture rule
s over the
words. Inst
ead of the
words being
the most im
portant part.

[Akeith (Gray)]

eric:

How can one have a degree in linguistists without a college course in it?

I think you are the one onto something here...I believe you are the one who has figured it out. 

(...P.S...eric finally saw through the B.S., even if it was just a straight line of it... )

Gray

[Mark H]

The only problem is that Mark's experiment was a hoax.  So either he's fooling you or you're fooling everbody else.

Eric

How certain are you it was not a double bluff? Or what if it started as a spoof but then a real poet convinced me it had some merit  perhaps that poet was also bluffing.

Whatever, my only point is that I don't see why we should rule things out just because they don't conform. I despise tradition for tradition's sake. Some concrete poetry is mugabe, but some -- like John's box -- is exceptional. Excluding it just because it has a strong visual aspect is dafter than buying a Spandau Ballet CD.

Mark