dbqp: visualizing poetics

Philadelphia International Airport, Gate F3

A pen, a paper, piece, almost a page. A sound, a simple sign, sigh. And words, nothing but words. Caught in a rumble amid clicking and rattling, blowing a whistle, whispers of corduroy. A sitting, a sat, a lap a desk, a writing. Written from words, unsounded, foundered, somehow found. Somehow sometime someday a thought somewhere thought right out.

ecr. l'inf.

Holiday Inn City Centre, Room 923, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

It is nearing midnight, and I've had a tiny bit over five hours of sleep (and dropping) over the past twenty-four hours, so this might be a brief report. I'm in Milwaukee to give a presentation about preserving electronic records to a group of archivists.

Today, I received another elegant publication from the hand and mind of Johnny Brewton, designer, typographer, and friend of poets. His X-Ray Book & Novelty Company puts out a slow, but careful and steady, selection of contemporary and near-contemporary† poetry and art. Chief among his projects is his imaginative X-Ray assembling, which collects together a number of beautiful handmade and letterpress publications into always-surprising packages.

In the fall of 1965, Alexis Levitin1 began a little magazine entitled The Quest. At the time, he was still a graduate student at Columbia University, and I can easily imagine the sense of mission that he must have had when launching that new literary venture.2 A few years later, Alexis left Columbia for a job at Dartmouth and turned over the reigns to David Hartwell and Tom Beeler, who gave that little magazine the quasi-eponymous title The Little Magazine beginning in 1970.

John M. Bennett Describes Himself: The Guide to the John M. Bennett Publications Collection, 1940-1995

Working with Andrew Harding and Katie Brennan, John M. Bennett “finishes” arranging and describing [an archives term] his own papers (which are actually spread among a few organizations).

Tonight, I gave a reading at Red Square in downtown Albany, New York (a bit distant from the Albany, California, where I once lived). My reading partner was Christopher Rizzo, who runs a stylish little micropress under the title Anchorite, and he went first. We soon discovered that Red Square's back room was a bit loud. There was chatter at the bar and the sound of cars driving by outside.

Below the Bar

A reminder to people living near Albany, New York: Christopher Rizzo and I are giving a reading tomorrow, September 23, at Red Square, 388 Broadway (at the corner of Hudson and Broadway). Be there no later than 6:30 to see the whole event.

ecr. l'inf.

Crowne Plaza, Room 318, Rochester, New York

Whatever we decide to call a particular visual poem doesn't change what it is, only what I call it.

ecr. l'inf.

I’d like to scatter, this evening, a few additional remarks about pattern poetry. For the most part, these represent thoughts I had as I was writing, but which I didn’t end up using last night.

Pattern poetry, as a term, preceded concrete poetry. Almost any poetry of a visual nature before the late 1800s received the designation of pattern poetry. There was no other choice.

Pattern poetry encompassed a number of different styles.

For years I’ve believed, without actually thinking it, that pattern poems were totally separate from concrete poems. I don’t mean that I saw these as two entirely different species of expression; merely, I didn’t consciously consider the strong similarities between these two strains of visual poetry. Maybe knowing concrete poetry so well has caused me to dismiss (or at least miss) the precursor form we call pattern poetry or shaped poetry or figured verse.