dbqp: visualizing poetics

Swirling around us into an ever-decreasing vortex is a war, one not fought to protect a people, one not fought to save a country, but one fought to show that we can fight a war. The planners of this endeavor hoped that attacking one evil man’s country would serve as a warning to others, undermine the unjust regimes of the Middle East, and bring democracy to the entire region. We fight this war towards the death of one thousand of our own for no good purpose and certainly for no righteous one. We fight this war instead of stabilizing Afghanistan (a country we recently destabilized), instead of directly addressing the real danger of nuclear proliferation via North Korea, instead of staunching the flow of blood in the Darfur region of the Sudan.

Much of the work of the visual poet concerns the recycling of images or texts. These bits of detritus serve as the foundation for an entirely new edifice, something never imagined by the original architect.

We might find a picture and tear it apart before constructing some new thing with the pieces. We might take an ancient text—even one we cannot read—and add it to a visual poem to give it something akin to ambiance.

The world of visual poetry seems suddenly large this week. I’m surrounded by new visual poetry to write about: two online journals, an online journal converted into a compact disc, a collection of anti-war poems, postcards filling up my mailbox. But I turn to a significant retrospective of my own work that appeared in a free local literary tabloid, because we all are solipsists at heart. Our only reality is the murmur of our own respective voices echoing within our own respective heads.

The other day while shuffling through a few sheets of paper on our distant third floor, I suddenly remembered my “journals” from Bolivia. They actually were more like commonplace books than diaries. Upon their pages I wrote on almost random topics: a particular word, some deep thought from my teenage mind, and (occasionally) my life. My individual entries (most with titles, I believe) ranged in length from a short paragraph to a number of pages.

In my little family, we have a tradition: On each birthday of each of my children, I write a piece of doggerel and give a brief reading of it after all of the child’s presents lie open before us. As I am wont to do, I have devised rules governing these poems:

I must write them on the day of the birthday (so they are always rough and unfinished).

They must be examples of nonsense verse.

They must include the meter of light verse and some set rhyme scheme.

Sometimes words are inadequate. They strut, telling us too much. They declaim when they should imply. They show when they should be.

But, inside us, the struggle towards the word continues. We take out our pens and draw a set of interlacing words we cannot read. We invent a solely written language, one without a verbal counterpart.

We try to reach somewhere without leaving where we are.

When we look back at our handiwork, we cannot tell if we have written a drawing or drawn a text.

Even as I accumulate information on visual poetry in my brain, I keep losing hold of some of it. To try to retard that process of loss and as a further attempt to promote visual poetry, I have put together an informal clipblog on the topic of visual poetry. From this quasi-central location, you can now review many other bloggers' thoughts on visual poetry.

Visit Visual Poetry Clippings, and see for yourself.

ecr. l'inf.

Still Point, Garlock Road, Caroga Lake, New York

We left our campsite early, wearied by more than half a day of heavy rain, and we made our traditional rainy retreat from the Adirondack woods. Somehow, we are used to such soggy hikes, just not used to leaving early.

On the way out, through the unstinting rain, I noticed a large log by the side of the path. Ours was a quick hike, a little under an hour for almost a two-and-a-half-mile hike.

"Loonless Pond," near Pharaoh Lake, Town of Schroon, New York

This unnamed beaver pond differs from most of the campsites we've chosen in these six million acres of Adirondack woods. Our tents rest upon an evergreen knoll dotted with tall thin pines and hemlocks. The water we face is filled with lily pads that catch the light near sunset. This piece of land of ours is a broad stubby promontory, and water surrounds us on three sides.