dbqp: visualizing poetics

Over a year ago, I posited a simple three-point taxonomy of verbo-visual art, any art that depends significantly upon the combination of the visual and the textual for its esthetic effects.1 Tonight, I would like to re-examine that taxonomy, point out its inherent weaknesses2, and note why I still think that this taxonomy adequately makes sense of this range of art. Let’s begin by reviewing the three categories:

1. Visual poetry (visually charged works with at least some textual content delivered in small quantities)

2. Visual prose (visually arranged prose, which may include visual fiction or non-fiction)

3. Comics (including comic strips, comic books, and graphic novels)

Of these three, comics are the easiest to define.

Geof Huth, "at at" (31 Jul 2005)

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Hampton Inn, Room 215, Williamsville, New York

Maybe I just want to use "synecdoche" in a title for the third time this week. Or maybe I figure I don't have the time to write much today since I have to prepare for my day tomorrow and I have just finished watching the sad and entrancing film Maria Full of Grace in my hotel room. Or maybe I just want to record Kaz Maslanka's explanation of the synechdocheal physics equations he devised the other day.

Hampton Inn, Room 215, Williamsville, New York

In our daily lives, visual non-linguistic symbols often stand in for words or concepts--just as words represent concepts on the verbal plane. In such cases, the symbol-makers believe, often correctly, that visual symbols can simply and quickly convey ideas without the heavy ambiguity of language, a system of communication so complicated that perfect understanding is rarely possible (if even desired).

Kaz Maslanka, a mathematical poet of some talent, sent me tonight a little formulaic* poem about synechdoche, inspired in part by my recent posting on synechdoche and his friend metonymy. I can't say that I understand entirely the physics of Maslanka's poems, but I find these delightful nonetheless. The unexpected rhyme in the middle was enough to capture my attention.

*(In the good sense.)

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A few months ago, I released the first version of "The Silent Alphabet." When I did, I received a few suggested additions, so find below version 2.0 of this important exagmination of the quirky silent letters of the English alphabet. Note that initial letters are much less likely to be silent than medial or terminal letters, and that medial letters are most likely to be silent.

Geof Huth, "The Silent Alphabet" (24 Oct 2005 Revision)

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Once upon a time, there were two friends, Metonymy and Synechdoche. One day, they were walking in the woords, when Metonomy walked into a tree and exclaimed, “This cannot be here in the middle of the woords!” Synechdoche was quite alarmed by this outburst and replied, “Why, this is the woords, my friend,” at which point they began a mild argument.

Before wandering far into their disagreement, they reached the edge of the woords and ventured into a large field bright with sunlight.

Available for the first time tonight are a number of my remarkably stark visual poems translated into Finnish by Marko J. Niemi and posted to his Nokturno.org. (I was surprised by their insistent minimalism when I saw these gathered together for the first time at this site.) Also available at Nokturno.org is "Words in Motion," a visual essay of mine that appeared previously in English at this blog.

Sheraton Dover Hotel, Room 612, Dover, Delaware

The story goes that the Pony Express lasted but a year because the telegraph came right after it, and no matter how fast the horses galloped they could not outrun the dots and dashes of the telegraph.

The telegraph itself was an early binary system, depending on a code based on alternating long sounds (dashes) and short ones (dots) to make any message.

Sheraton Dover Hotel, Room 612, Dover, Delaware

Congratulations on your wife's pregnancy. To grow a family is a wonderful adventure, full of happiness and heartache, and it's something I could never have lived without. And a new life is a simple gift of ours to the world, and one that changes us so drastically in the giving. Please give your wife my congratulations.