definition of this being that the layout and shape of the words
are supposed to:
'convey the intended effect as the conventional
elements of the poem, such as meaning of words, rhythm,
rhyme and so on.'
This is essentially the concept I came up with initially,
(thinking I was being original - which nowadays is very rarely
the case.) however, the difference between my concept and
the idea behind concrete poetry is that, I, as the graphic
designer, know what best communicates a message
visually. I have the tools / knowledge that will look good
as well as communicating the meaning effectively.
Concrete Poetry was completely recognized in the 1950s, as is
marked by the numerous publications created from the German
and Brazilian artists. The work of Eugen Gomringer (German artist),
Augusto de Campos, Haraldo de Campos, Decio Pignatari
(Brazilian artists), as well as other poets from England, France, Italy,
Czechoslovakia, Spain, Canada and the United States indicate the
strength of the Concrete Poetry, which is conveyed from the
manipulation of sound or visual form.
Source
Eugen Gomringer:
'Eugen Gomringer is one of the key figure of the German language
Concrete Poetry movement. According to Druker, Gomringer's
concept involved the use of a compact set of formal elements-poems
of one or several words arranged in strict and relatively simple structural
arrangements. His Famous poem ‘Silence' is a visual presentation to the
meaning of the work. (Druker, J. 1998). '
Gomringer was mainly working in Switzerland. Furthermore, in 1953
he published a series of work under the name "Konstellations" and
began his career as one of the creators of the international magazine
‘Spirale', where he has the opportunity to show his point of view
regarding the modern art.Gomringer's poems are written in many different
languages such as German, English, Spanish, and French.
Decio Pignatari:
Decio Pignatari is a poet, graphic artist, and a professor of
information theory who was born in Sao Paulo in 1927. His poems
and essays were published in all issues of the Noigandres magazine.
Besides that he is co-founded the Noigandres group in 1952
together with Augusto and Haroldo de Campos, he is also co-authored
of the "pilot plan for concrete poetry" in 1958, and "Teoria da Poesia
Concreta" in 1965.
Pilot Plan for Concrete Poetry (1958)
Augusto de Campos, Decio Pignatari, Haroldo de Campos: Brazil
From Concrete Poetry: A World View, 1968, ed Mary Ellen Solt
Concrete Poetry: product of a critical evolution of forms. Assuming
that the historical cycle of verse (as formal-rhythmical unit) is
closed, concrete poetry begins by being aware of graphic space as
structural agent. Qualified space: space-time structure instead of mere
linear-temporistical development. Hence the importance of ideogram
concept, either in its general sense of spatial or visual syntax, or in
its special sense (Fenollosa/ Pound) of method of composition based on
direct-analogical, not logical-discursive juxtaposition of elements. "ll
faut que notre intelligence s’habitue à comprendre
synthético-idéographiquement au lieu de analytico -discursivement"
(Apollinaire). Elsenstein: ideogram and montage.
Forerunners: Mallarmé (Un coup de dés, 1897): the first qualitative jump: "subdivisions prismatiques de l’idée"; space ("blancs") and typographical devices as substantive elements of composition. Pound (The Cantos); ideogramic method. Joyce (Ulysses and Finnegans Wake): word-ideogram; organic interpenetration of time and space. Cummings: atomization of words, physiognomical typography; expressionistic emphasis on space. Apollinaire (Calligrammes): the vision, rather than the praxis. Futurism, Dadaism: contributions to the life of the problem. In Brazil: Oswald de Andrade (1890-1954): "in pills, minutes of poetry. João Cabral de Melo Neto (born 1920—The Engineer and The Psychology of Composition plus Anti-Ode): direct speech, economy and functional architecture of verse.
Concrete Poetry: tension of things-words in space-time. Dynamic structure: multiplicity of concomitant movements. So in music-by, definition, a time art-space intervenes (Webern and his followers: Boulez and Stockhausen; concrete and electronic music); in visual arts-spatial, by definition-time intervenes (Mondrian and his Boogie-Woogie series; Max Bill; Albers and perceptive ambivalence; concrete art in general).
Ideogram: appeal to nonverbal communication. Concrete poem communicates its own structure: structure-content. Concrete poem is an object in and by itself, not an interpreter of exterior objects and/ or more or less subjective feelings. Its material word (sound, visual form, semantical charge). Its problem: a problem of functions-relations of this material. Factors of proximity and similitude, gestalt psychology. Rhythm: relational force. Concrete poem, by using the phonetical system (digits) and analogical syntax, creates a specific linguistical area-"verbivocovisual" -which shares the advantages of nonverbal communication, without giving up word's virtualities. With the concrete poem occurs the phenomenon of metacommunication: coincidence and simultaneity of verbal and nonverbal communication; only-it must be noted-it deals with a communication of forms, of a structure-content, not with the usual message communication.
Concrete Poetry aims at the least common multiple of language. Hence its tendency to nounising and verbification. "The concrete wherewithal of speech" (Sapir). Hence its affinities with the so-called isolating languages (Chinese): "The less outward grammar the Chinese language possesses, the more inner grammar inherent in it" (Humboldt via Cassirer). Chinese offers an example of pure relational syntax, based exclusively on word order (see Fenollosa, Sapir and Cassirer).
The conflict form-subject looking for identification, we call isomorphism. Parallel to form-subject isomorphism, there is a space-time isomorphisin, which creates movement. In a first moment of concrete poetry pragmatics, isomorphism tends to physiognomy, that is a movement imitating natural appearance (motion); organic form and phenomenology of composition prevail. In a more advanced stage, isomorphism tends to resolve itself into pure structural movement (movement properly said); at this phase, geometric form and mathematics of composition (sensible rationalism) prevail.
Renouncing the struggle for "absolute," Concrete Poetry remains in the magnetic field of perennial relativeness. Chronomicro-metering of hazard. Control. Cybernetics. The poem as a mechanism regulating itself: feed-back. Faster communication (problems of functionality and structure implied) endows the poem with a positive value and guides its own making.
Concrete Poetry: total responsibility before language. Thorough realism. Against a poetry of expression, subjective and hedonistic. To create precise problems and to solve them in terms of sensible language. A general art of the word. The poem-product: useful object.
Forerunners: Mallarmé (Un coup de dés, 1897): the first qualitative jump: "subdivisions prismatiques de l’idée"; space ("blancs") and typographical devices as substantive elements of composition. Pound (The Cantos); ideogramic method. Joyce (Ulysses and Finnegans Wake): word-ideogram; organic interpenetration of time and space. Cummings: atomization of words, physiognomical typography; expressionistic emphasis on space. Apollinaire (Calligrammes): the vision, rather than the praxis. Futurism, Dadaism: contributions to the life of the problem. In Brazil: Oswald de Andrade (1890-1954): "in pills, minutes of poetry. João Cabral de Melo Neto (born 1920—The Engineer and The Psychology of Composition plus Anti-Ode): direct speech, economy and functional architecture of verse.
Concrete Poetry: tension of things-words in space-time. Dynamic structure: multiplicity of concomitant movements. So in music-by, definition, a time art-space intervenes (Webern and his followers: Boulez and Stockhausen; concrete and electronic music); in visual arts-spatial, by definition-time intervenes (Mondrian and his Boogie-Woogie series; Max Bill; Albers and perceptive ambivalence; concrete art in general).
Ideogram: appeal to nonverbal communication. Concrete poem communicates its own structure: structure-content. Concrete poem is an object in and by itself, not an interpreter of exterior objects and/ or more or less subjective feelings. Its material word (sound, visual form, semantical charge). Its problem: a problem of functions-relations of this material. Factors of proximity and similitude, gestalt psychology. Rhythm: relational force. Concrete poem, by using the phonetical system (digits) and analogical syntax, creates a specific linguistical area-"verbivocovisual" -which shares the advantages of nonverbal communication, without giving up word's virtualities. With the concrete poem occurs the phenomenon of metacommunication: coincidence and simultaneity of verbal and nonverbal communication; only-it must be noted-it deals with a communication of forms, of a structure-content, not with the usual message communication.
Concrete Poetry aims at the least common multiple of language. Hence its tendency to nounising and verbification. "The concrete wherewithal of speech" (Sapir). Hence its affinities with the so-called isolating languages (Chinese): "The less outward grammar the Chinese language possesses, the more inner grammar inherent in it" (Humboldt via Cassirer). Chinese offers an example of pure relational syntax, based exclusively on word order (see Fenollosa, Sapir and Cassirer).
The conflict form-subject looking for identification, we call isomorphism. Parallel to form-subject isomorphism, there is a space-time isomorphisin, which creates movement. In a first moment of concrete poetry pragmatics, isomorphism tends to physiognomy, that is a movement imitating natural appearance (motion); organic form and phenomenology of composition prevail. In a more advanced stage, isomorphism tends to resolve itself into pure structural movement (movement properly said); at this phase, geometric form and mathematics of composition (sensible rationalism) prevail.
Renouncing the struggle for "absolute," Concrete Poetry remains in the magnetic field of perennial relativeness. Chronomicro-metering of hazard. Control. Cybernetics. The poem as a mechanism regulating itself: feed-back. Faster communication (problems of functionality and structure implied) endows the poem with a positive value and guides its own making.
Concrete Poetry: total responsibility before language. Thorough realism. Against a poetry of expression, subjective and hedonistic. To create precise problems and to solve them in terms of sensible language. A general art of the word. The poem-product: useful object.
Translated by the authors.
1958
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