Nicole Beauchamp "notes"

Nicole Beauchamp

ENGL 400—Rehn

October 11, 2011

“notes”

Or, Graphic Poetry Project

Concrete poetry, according to R. P. Draper, “is the creation of verbal artifacts which exploit the possibilities, not only of sound, sense and rhythm—the traditional fields of poetry—but also of space, whether it be the flat, two-dimensional space of letters on the printed page, or the three-dimensional space of words in relief and sculpted ideograms” (329). The following poem, “notes,” is a product of that definition.

When the poem transitions from text to image, the meaning of particular lines as well as the poem on the whole is altered.  The physical placement of certain words highlights their meaning. For example, the word “sideways” forces the reader to tilt into a rather awkward position, much as the poem is trying to demonstrate that point. This transformation from text to graphic is shown in a variety of other ways, as discussed below.

Throughout the entirety of the poem, space is by far the most important feature. Space, both on the page and in our minds, often represents time. The more space is found between words, the more time passes between each word. And the converse is also true. The lack of space indicates a lack of time. In the poem, spaces often play the role of punctuation. Rather than using commas to indicate a mental and verbal pause, the blank space on the page denotes the passage of time.  The blank space also draws attention to what is not there, as in the third line (“The empty      bed”) and when the CDs are bumped to the next line after the word “blank.” Another role that blank space plays in the poem is to recall particular meanings. For example, the word “high” is above the rest of the line, indicating its definition through both the word and its placement, but also as a physical representation of the state of the desk. Also, “sideways” is actually sideways, recalling the definition, as well as a particular image that I had in mind. In short, “the spatial elements of the poem much do the work of traditional syntax and articulate the meaning that lies dormant in words” (Draper 334).

            The particular placement of the words on the page also denotes or recalls specific meanings. The best example of this is the last line of the first page of the poem. “There’s no turning back now,” it says. And since the line is at the end of the page, once you turn to the second page, there is no turning back in a more literal sense. At the end of the poem, the last two words (“the phone”) share the same alignment on the second page. This echoism forces a redefining of “There’s no turning back now” once the very last line is considered, but also forces a reconsideration of “the phone” in light of the line on the previous page. Additionally, the use of a period at the end of the first page denotes finality (as does its meaning); however, the same is not true of the end of the poem. It is left open-ended, or rather, open spaced. What comes next is blank, unknown, unwritten. Another example of word placement affecting meaning is the line “’I’m in love with you.’” It is centered on the page and in a large font. This brings to mind the image of the actual physical note.

Jeffrey Wilson "Boom"

Jeff Wilson

10/10/11

ENGL 410

            My visual poem is called “boom” because I wanted a title that communicated the idea as succinctly as possible.  The poem itself is pretty simple: I found a black-and-white picture of a mushroom cloud online, as well as an image of the Sanskrit text, which I pasted over the picture multiple times, and then, I trimmed it so that the text was framed on the cloud and wrote “boom” in big black letters at the bottom.  The Sanskrit quote is taken from the Bhagavad Gita and it is the same section that Oppenheimer quoted when he tested the first nuclear bomb:

We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.

In any case, I decided to configure the poem this way because I thought it looked pretty cool and I wanted it to resonate with the world around me without being too pretentious about it.  I put the title at the bottom to sort of offset the reference to the godhood of Krishna and to bring the poem back down to its essential meaning.

            McCloud said in chapter two that “Words are totally abstract icons.  That is, they bear no resemblance at all to the real McCoy.”  Obviously, substituting words for images is an old trick in visual poetry, but I couldn’t resist doing it with “boom.”  With the Sanskrit, I added another level to the poem, in that, I can’t actually read Sanskrit, so it’s an abstract icon that doesn’t have any direct meaning because I can only understand it through translation.  The resulting ambiguity of meaning then corresponds with the idea of abstraction as “anti-narrative,” which “can ‘hide’ within the folds of narrative itself and suggest its own meanings that are intertwined with those promoted by acts of storytelling,” according to Baetens in her abstract comics article.  For me, the Sanskrit letters are meaningless without the translation.  However, the appearance of the letters on the image evoke in my mind both the grandeur of Hindu mythology and, because of the white outlines on a black background, the imprints of people and things annihilated by the nukes that were imprinted on walls and sidewalks. 

Here is my visual poem.  It is entitled "boom."  Also, I figured I'd mention that the Sanskrit letters spell out a verse from the Bhagavad Gita often translated as "Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.