“…letters have a destination other than words.”
Isidore isou
Digital work and the scanning of physical work are all being dumped on the Internet at an alarming rate. Is there a diminishing that occurs? What was once an impossibly tiny group of vispo practitioners has grown hundred-fold, if not more. Genres have blended, groups have formed into other groups, etc. That is fabulous news of course, but what does it mean? Social media is on the verge of annihilating itself for the next upcoming shift – whatever that’ll be. Will visuals replace/eliminate words, is that a foreseeable outcome? There is a change happening, surely.
The vispoems below are from 2010 and were created on an iPod Touch. I used theTypeDrawing app that till then was only in b&w, but had just come out with a color palette. The results here are my initial forays into fashioning vispo via a hand-held device. Since then, digital letter compositions have been my vispoetic focus.
from iPoems:
notes for iPoems
by Crag Hill
many of the attendees at the 2010 Avant Writing Symposium in Columbus, OH were privileged to be present at the birth of the first of these visual poems. we experienced and expressed the joy and delight one does when a friend or family member has a new child. we clamored to hold them, to gush over the primary colors, the curves and meshing of letters combining into new letters, calling out for meanings heretofore inexpressible. as we sat in the back, passing Nico’s iPod around, we might not have always been the best audience, our eyes so loud, chattering:
hold cards close. O O O O O O O A A. hand in play. that’s how to start start
red calligraphic sun rising above march
how does alphabet burn, with or without serif
it’s what upside down ego ejaculation, kisses, a colon, violin, palatable
mesh. that’s a consistent impulse. white nylon font the alphabet end
fewest numbers of words, integers, integrity
even parentheses can’t agree, yet bound
blood orange, green drop
my violin’s martini. engorged comma serpentine, repetition, edible wisp
vaginal asterisk, blue, blue velvet. solidity
focus, not many other words. these the visual tracks to the spoken
resonating against and/or within. and even more
impossible vulva spectrum, balled up. connection, end stop, binary edition
black blowing off bright
roiling ball of potential spinning off. grammar as universal virus, binary scrum
O O O roiling ball sings different keys, registers, pulled teeth of punctuation, redhot O offset
lower case subjectivity, broad-bracketed. roiling ball of presentation in presence does not recede
links unlinked. comma that binds intrudes and narrows and binds. beehive patch
as if building blocks red-blooded squared and white squares punched through, blue, could build anything
he brought us fingertip bouquets
somersaulting sergeant-at-arms. Deterior. whorls of eye
equal not equal equal. cityscapes face off, sidestep
soaring at the surprise compositioning inventive spatial relationships, animated undertones. soaring at agencies of letters, freewill punctuation, magnetism
bracketed, brain of Ss, quick calligraphic tag
out of the energy emerges a being that first lives in eyes
but doesn’t start nor stop there
ego & four-walled chains of comic panels stacked, blank but not empty, beckoning
O O O O O O translucent jellyfish backpacking violins
she will breathe something else
mid-slash but still black-boxed. pent energy pushing, collapsing, pulsing
generosity, inventiveness, buoyancy, potency. three baubles a bubble
expands frame or frame taps. she is alive like no other. she is universal
she likes her eyes decenter
king of spades. dissonant accordion
smoke screen, lower mind alphabet
exclaims
soaring at lines dancing, material/s, arcs, inadmissible tag
fingers poses. out of smoke comes flare it all falls in
suture the dissolve/D
saccade cemetery. cityscape swallowing. firecrackerhive
we have our own retinal cultivations
common denominator, roiling mass of letters dropped on/popping out of order/s, driving into/out of limiting/limitlessframe
black back drop. zone zoom zoo, cordoned off, rubberstamped
more than two dimensions, even inside frame. submerged, merging
acrid crash. anthropomorpheyes
drum major. all sifting not settling
tensions—tendencies—tendons in palm of eye, gaze of hand, thumb forefinger slow exfolding scatterlings
tonguelick hand spray
ghost wrap, a A A A
tropical spawn. petals of moonshot. caviar, ah yes
tadpole chopsticks, tic-tac-toe clenched
Y stop seeing
