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"Sucked in with a stab of humour." That phrase taken from the introduction to 'Concrete and
Calligram', adequately encapsulates my first reaction to these delightful concrete poems. Then on a slightly deeper level it made me reflect on the fuzzy boundaries between one art form and another. I was art trained (painting and printing), and one of the attractions of poetry for me is that an indivual poem can be thought of as a painting with words that can be similarly touched up, modified,
reduced, painted over in part before the artist is satisfied with it.
The first poem in the sequence 'Bang Bang (a spot in London, Manchester, Birmingham….)', led me through a rapid sequence of well there's not much to that, instantly followed by yes it's both a poem and a picture, that's clever, less quickly followed by 'ah yes I see, wow!". The line of words evokes its own
images in the reader's imagination and then the clever piece of keyboard art beneath completes the picture, particularly when considering where he has decided to bisect the repeated stream of words.
Some ""poems"" are more visual than poetic. 'Digging up Dirt in Zimbabwe' for example is both the title and the only words in an otherwise visual experience. This of course draws the question, is this then truly a poem? Personally, I found myself getting over that. I stopped bothering to ask the
question. This (piece?) was both amusing, disturbing and clever--there's that word again, and I didn't need to ask any more of it.
Indeed, each click initiated a new gasp in my head. Sometimes it was the arrangement of words or
letters used visually as in 'Paranoia Poem', 'BREAK UP' , Bang Ban or '3 Word Suicide Poem'. Sometimes it was predominantly the ingenious imaginative use of the keyboard to produce amusing/disturbing images that initiated a sharp intake of breath. Some were disturbing more than they were amusing, and it was usually the words that did the damage. See 'What's Witnessed Sunday At A Pond Causes Ripples'. Some were predominantly amusing, and by contrast it was usually the visuals that brought on the titters. Personal favourites were 'Writer's Block', 'Sharon over the photocopier' and 'Nature Poem'. I've used the word clever a few times in sharing my thoughts about these little gems, but they are. The word fits. Go and be both amused and shocked yourselves. Discover the
poems at Concrete and Calligram .
Graham Burchell
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