Exercise 2: Concrete Poetry

Critical writing task
Identify an example of concrete poetry and write a short critique of the content, design and the relationship between the content and form. How has the use of typography, layout, and space been employed to help generate meaning? Print out a copy of the poem and add notes directly onto the page. Write a brief summary of your thoughts, feelings and reflections on how concrete poetry creates new meanings.

Alan Ridell – Zen Sword

This poem is deceptively simple and features three words. The most prominent word is censored but there are also two profanities featured: fuck and cunt. The profanities are partially obscured by the word censored at the top of the poem. The shape of the poem is reminiscent of a sword. It is apparent how the decreased leading and increased tracking creates visual tension. This tension is also noted in the juxtaposition of words. I found this poem to be simple and effective. It seems that zen sword may refer to a martial art called simgumdo which teaches that a clear mind and mind-body harmony are the most important foundations. Perhaps the poem is a piercing of ‘unclean’ thoughts?

Donato Mancini – Starfield Series

This is one of the poems from the Starfield series. I have found it a lot more difficult to extract meaning from this piece. The words used are candle, rise, dough, oral and drip. This may refer to cooking and eating although it could also refer to other things. The use of repetition and varying word sizes and spacing seems to evoke the qualities of echoes, rising and descending. The o letters look like bubbles or perhaps stars. There is a sense of movement and rhythm in this piece. It is possible that stars are important here, the piece could be a visualisation of starlight travelling or constellations – or maybe the black background symbolises space and the words are being lost in it. It is a poem that is open to interpretation and mysterious which makes it markedly different to the first poem but equally powerful.

The act of perception itself is the first preoccupation of concrete poetry. The optic or visual poet offers the poem as a constellation in space; the kinetic poet offers it as a visual succession; the phonetic poet offers it as an auditory succession.

Mike Reaver

If perception is fundamental to concrete poetry then this ties in nicely with the newest edition of the magazine New Philosopher which I am reading and happens to be about perception. Mike Reaver notes how optic poems can exploit the mind’s tendency to ‘reverse’ images. Thanks to my New Philosopher magazine I have learnt that this is called reification. This is a generative aspect of perception where something abstract is perceived as real. The below picture illustrates how this works visually:

This is just one way in which an optic poem may work of course. In reality, a poem will probably embody all three approaches to some degree and there is no clear dividing line. If I reevaluate Alan Ridell’s Zen Sword I can see it has a clear optic quality with the shape and spacing and a lot of the meaning is derived from this. There will always be a phonetic quality to poems, whether we are uttering the words out loud or in our heads so this also applies to Zen Sword. Censored has quite a smooth and passive quality that is juxtaposed against the blunt quality of the word fuck and cunt. It could also be argued that there is a kinetic quality to the poem with words packed more tightly at the top of the poem – this means my eye is drawn from bottom to top.

I only analysed one poem from Donato Mancini’s Starfield series. This unfortunately means that the kinetic quality of the entire series is lost because the series works better as a whole, with varying movements and shapes. The poems also have a strong phonetic quality.

Visual task

Visual task
Use one typeface to create a playful design for the Tango with Cows, 1914, by Russian Futurist Vasily Kamensky (poem shown below). Explore and experiment with the relationship between the meaning of the text and the form you present it. Think about what kind of typeface you choose as well, does it reflect the content of the text? How does the paper relate to the design? Decide on an appropriate scale and format for this page. Create a series of sketches and ideas, and chose one to develop into your final design. Print your design on one of the papers you have collected in the previous exercise.

Poem: Tango With Cows
Life is shorter than the squeal of a sparrow.
Like a dog, regardless, sailing on an ice floe down the river in spring?
With tinned mirth
we look at our destiny.
We – the discoverers of countries
conquerors of the air
kings of orange groves
and cattle.
Perhaps we will drink
a glass of wine
to the health of the comets,
expiring diamond blood.
Or better still – we’ll get a record player.
Well, to hell with you!
hornless and ironed!
I want one – to dance one
tango with cows
and to build bridges
from the tears
of bovine jealousy
to the tears
of crimson girls.

Write a short paragraph reflecting on the relationship between the form and content of your design in your learning log.

Research

Tango with Cows is an artists’ book by Russian Futurist Vasily Kamensky. It was created in 1914 and one of the defining physical features it has it that it is made entirely of commercially available wallpaper. One of the major themes in the book is that of the growing tension and conflict between Russia’s agricultural past and the tide of modernism at the time. Dancing farm animals were therefore a way of symbolising this power struggle. The work also notably emphasises spatial arrangement above traditional word placement.

These two spreads from the book give you a sense of the typographic experimentation. There are myriad typefaces, word sizes, orientations and arrangements. The spatial quality of the typography puts the reader in mind of Cubism and varying perspectives. It also looks like an interplay or dance which is where the tango comes into play.

Typeface

Using only one typeface for this design does perhaps remove the possibility of a dance and tension between different typefaces. It might be wise to choose a typeface with a variety of different fonts. Russian Constructivism began around 1913 and at the core of its philosophy it believed in art for social change. Constructivism placed functionality over decoration. It would be wise to look at some Constructivist style typefaces for this exercise I think.

Paper, scale and format

My initial idea for paper stock is a recycled kraft paper. The roughness and lack of finish on this paper will evoke something of the age, political turmoil and and tension in the subject. I have 100gsm and 200gsm paper which I will try and see which works better. I’m drawn to using a children’s book format for this visual task and to emphasise the playful character of the poem and the ‘dance’.

Design

The first thing I did was to find some good examples of tango dance positions to form a basis for my designs.

In InDesign I created four art boards with 8×8 inch dimensions. This as I mentioned previously is a format for children’s books which I feel is perfect for this poem. Spreading the poem over four pages will add kinetics to the poem. Based on the four dance poses I had found I created lines for the placement of the text.

Next, I started laying down the words and trying typefaces. Finding a Constructivist inspired typeface was quite a smooth process and I found a great one called ‘Rodchenko Condensed’. It offered three different fonts which was perfectly adequate. I decided to run with the idea of using two different typefaces. This breaks the rules of the brief but I would like to highlight why I think this is a smart decision. Using the same typeface would lessen the distinction between the two figures and two opposing forces in the poem. Two typefaces strengthens the imagery of a dance between these two forces and the tension that arises from that. I hope my tutor sees the logic in my decision.

As the man is usually the lead in the Tango and a bigger figure I thought it would make sense for the male figure to represent the tide of modernity. Finding a suitable typeface for the female figure was a slightly longer process. I tried various script typefaces for example to add more contrast to the Rodchenko typeface. A typeface with more historical associations was what I desired. What I eventually settled on to fit the bill was a Blackletter typeface called ‘Ode’. It is subtle enough to not be too distracting and domineering on the page. Below you can see how it compares with a script typeface.

Now I could begin fine tuning the words for each page. One of the main challenges consisted of calculating how to break up the words and sentences. I had cut the poem into four parts quite easily but assigning words and sentences to each of the limbs proved more time consuming. I also had to consider the direction of text. I could afford to be non linear to an extent but there still needed to be a capacity for the poem to be read in the correct order. The other challenge was to illustrate the key words with simple typographic alterations and limited fx.

This was now beginning to build a more complete picture of concrete poetry. There was optical appeal with the dancing figures and alterations of certain words, e.g. wavy shaped sailing. A kinetic approach was apparent in the poem being spread over multiple pages and dance poses as well as the movement of text. Lastly, I resolved to include phonetic qualities to some of the words, e.g. an exaggerated o in words such as dog and look.

Despite the poem taking shape it seemed to lack something. I decided to add simple stick man like shapes around the words as a nod to the Constructivist preference of functionality. Grey seemed like a suitable and pedestrian colour for the modern and a sepia like colour the perfect choice for agricultural history.

After this I made my final adjustments to fit the words inside the shapes and make any last alterations that I thought were needed and ended up with my final designs.

Before printing onto the kraft paper I tried printing on some red card that I had. I thought red both symbolised Russia and a colour for passion, i.e. the Tango. It didn’t work but it was worth a try.

Next I printed the design on the recycled kraft paper. Although the visual appearance was the same I preferred the heavier 200 gsm paper for its more sturdy and solid quality.

This worked well enough with the faded look adding historical appeal. However, I wondered if more contrast would be a better idea so I livened up the colours while holding onto the modern and historical associations.

I thought this was much better so I tried one more time on the red card and although it was marginally better it was still a failure.

Printing on the kraft paper created brilliant results and I was happy to leave it as it was.

I took one extra step here and did a simple binding to create a small flip book.

Reflections

I find concrete poetry to be an interesting but overlooked art form. As a marriage of both language and the visual it can have more of an immediate effect on the viewer, but equally it can obscure meaning. I found that analysing concrete poems could be quite challenging because of the sometimes abstract quality they take on. Creating my own concrete poetry was very enjoyable and made me look at words from a different angle. Seeking a balance between the visual and the semantic was a challenge and also taking into account paper and format added extra considerations. However, when done properly all of these things can work harmoniously to create a working whole. I thought that I connected the form and content of my poem in a logical manner.

References

NCBI. 2009. Tango with Cows. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2666295/. [Accessed 5 December 2020].

Designer Daily. 2020. Tango with Cows: cubo-futurist art by Vasily Kamenski. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.designer-daily.com/tango-with-cows-cubo-futurist-art-by-vassili-kamenski-57707. [Accessed 5 December 2020].