WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.080 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.080 --> 00:00:03.240 align:middle line:84% Charles Olson, if you want to see a really-- 00:00:03.240 --> 00:00:04.980 align:middle line:84% if you guys haven't been over next door 00:00:04.980 --> 00:00:07.590 align:middle line:84% and toured through the second floor, 00:00:07.590 --> 00:00:09.240 align:middle line:84% there's a whole series of broadsides 00:00:09.240 --> 00:00:12.600 align:middle line:84% done by Chax Press, who is local here, 00:00:12.600 --> 00:00:15.600 align:middle line:84% that are magnificent interpretations 00:00:15.600 --> 00:00:19.680 align:middle line:84% of various Charles Olson poems that are doing things 00:00:19.680 --> 00:00:21.480 align:middle line:90% like this, very much like this. 00:00:21.480 --> 00:00:23.400 align:middle line:84% I could have included pretty much all of them 00:00:23.400 --> 00:00:26.760 align:middle line:84% in this presentation because of how successfully they 00:00:26.760 --> 00:00:28.845 align:middle line:84% problematized, whether it's visual or textual. 00:00:28.845 --> 00:00:31.730 align:middle line:90% 00:00:31.730 --> 00:00:34.800 align:middle line:84% Lewis Carroll, a very famous piece. 00:00:34.800 --> 00:00:37.340 align:middle line:84% But again, I think it falls into the same category of, 00:00:37.340 --> 00:00:41.810 align:middle line:84% this is not what I consider to be a concrete poem. 00:00:41.810 --> 00:00:44.540 align:middle line:84% Many people would, I think, call it a shape poem. 00:00:44.540 --> 00:00:47.780 align:middle line:84% But the visual quality of what's going on here, 00:00:47.780 --> 00:00:50.420 align:middle line:84% there's really no other way to present this. 00:00:50.420 --> 00:00:52.853 align:middle line:84% I don't think you could read this out loud. 00:00:52.853 --> 00:00:55.020 align:middle line:84% I don't think you can do anything other than see it. 00:00:55.020 --> 00:00:56.603 align:middle line:84% I think if a person couldn't see this, 00:00:56.603 --> 00:01:01.400 align:middle line:84% you would have no way of communicating it to them. 00:01:01.400 --> 00:01:02.550 align:middle line:90% May Swenson. 00:01:02.550 --> 00:01:07.020 align:middle line:84% This is a really subtle version of what I'm talking about. 00:01:07.020 --> 00:01:10.610 align:middle line:84% But the poem is all about the knife, and the cut, 00:01:10.610 --> 00:01:15.740 align:middle line:84% and the separation, and more, and the cut. 00:01:15.740 --> 00:01:21.050 align:middle line:84% And what you have is this very subtle use of white space that 00:01:21.050 --> 00:01:24.140 align:middle line:84% I think, if you have the time to take the time to read through 00:01:24.140 --> 00:01:28.220 align:middle line:84% this poem, you would find makes the poem in a way that the text 00:01:28.220 --> 00:01:30.720 align:middle line:90% all by itself cannot. 00:01:30.720 --> 00:01:35.250 align:middle line:90% John Cage made mesostics. 00:01:35.250 --> 00:01:39.045 align:middle line:84% This is a piece that must be original. 00:01:39.045 --> 00:01:40.420 align:middle line:84% There's no other way it could be. 00:01:40.420 --> 00:01:45.330 align:middle line:84% And it is comprised of nothing but text, and in fact, nothing 00:01:45.330 --> 00:01:48.780 align:middle line:84% but appropriated text, not even his own text. 00:01:48.780 --> 00:01:52.110 align:middle line:90% 00:01:52.110 --> 00:01:56.130 align:middle line:84% Karl Kempton is a California-based visual poet 00:01:56.130 --> 00:01:58.500 align:middle line:90% of some note. 00:01:58.500 --> 00:02:02.370 align:middle line:84% Maybe you're all familiar with the famous Basho poem. 00:02:02.370 --> 00:02:05.110 align:middle line:84% This is yet another interpretation of it. 00:02:05.110 --> 00:02:07.950 align:middle line:84% And again, I think because he's chosen 00:02:07.950 --> 00:02:14.450 align:middle line:84% to translate that frog in sound splash as an exclamation point, 00:02:14.450 --> 00:02:16.850 align:middle line:84% this is a piece that is no longer purely textual, 00:02:16.850 --> 00:02:18.440 align:middle line:90% because what is punctuation? 00:02:18.440 --> 00:02:21.932 align:middle line:84% Is punctuation lexical or visual? 00:02:21.932 --> 00:02:22.880 align:middle line:90% I'm not sure. 00:02:22.880 --> 00:02:24.590 align:middle line:84% I think Holly Crawford is not sure either 00:02:24.590 --> 00:02:26.840 align:middle line:84% and is trying to work through what it could mean. 00:02:26.840 --> 00:02:28.040 align:middle line:90% Here's another poem. 00:02:28.040 --> 00:02:30.290 align:middle line:84% Again, somebody who is sort of serially 00:02:30.290 --> 00:02:32.870 align:middle line:84% obsessed with tinkering with things. 00:02:32.870 --> 00:02:37.727 align:middle line:90% 00:02:37.727 --> 00:02:39.560 align:middle line:84% And again, I think it's the punctuation that 00:02:39.560 --> 00:02:42.170 align:middle line:90% problematizes this. 00:02:42.170 --> 00:02:44.300 align:middle line:84% Could you say that this is just a text? 00:02:44.300 --> 00:02:44.930 align:middle line:90% I guess. 00:02:44.930 --> 00:02:49.250 align:middle line:84% I mean, I think this is probably on the alt text side of it, 00:02:49.250 --> 00:02:53.090 align:middle line:84% but without the visual aspect, it fits. 00:02:53.090 --> 00:02:58.100 align:middle line:90% It's not even legible. 00:02:58.100 --> 00:03:01.820 align:middle line:84% This one people love to tell me doesn't belong here, 00:03:01.820 --> 00:03:06.960 align:middle line:84% but what I maintain about this is 00:03:06.960 --> 00:03:12.520 align:middle line:84% I think this poem is structured like a wet, black bough 00:03:12.520 --> 00:03:15.460 align:middle line:90% intentionally. 00:03:15.460 --> 00:03:20.080 align:middle line:84% I see so much in this that Pound did on purpose 00:03:20.080 --> 00:03:22.210 align:middle line:90% for the visual aspect of it. 00:03:22.210 --> 00:03:23.990 align:middle line:84% I find it actually difficult to defend it. 00:03:23.990 --> 00:03:27.683 align:middle line:84% So feel free to not agree with me. 00:03:27.683 --> 00:03:29.350 align:middle line:84% And you're welcome to not agree with me, 00:03:29.350 --> 00:03:33.580 align:middle line:84% but know that, to many people, it does have that aspect. 00:03:33.580 --> 00:03:36.430 align:middle line:84% And maybe it's even synesthetic on some level. 00:03:36.430 --> 00:03:38.770 align:middle line:84% There's something about this that to me is 00:03:38.770 --> 00:03:43.420 align:middle line:90% memetic of what is right. 00:03:43.420 --> 00:03:45.520 align:middle line:90% Apollinaire, of course. 00:03:45.520 --> 00:03:47.500 align:middle line:90% This is a poem about rain. 00:03:47.500 --> 00:03:51.988 align:middle line:90% 00:03:51.988 --> 00:03:54.030 align:middle line:84% This is one of mine that, again, I think probably 00:03:54.030 --> 00:03:56.460 align:middle line:84% because of the punctuation, and maybe a little bit 00:03:56.460 --> 00:03:59.820 align:middle line:84% of the anticipatory, that made the other funny. 00:03:59.820 --> 00:04:02.782 align:middle line:84% The only way that this works is-- 00:04:02.782 --> 00:04:03.990 align:middle line:90% I shouldn't say the only way. 00:04:03.990 --> 00:04:09.660 align:middle line:84% This is another one that maybe perhaps can be called text, 00:04:09.660 --> 00:04:12.090 align:middle line:84% but there's definitely something about the mechanism that 00:04:12.090 --> 00:04:17.940 align:middle line:84% makes this work that is involved with the visual pause, 00:04:17.940 --> 00:04:20.822 align:middle line:90% provided that [INAUDIBLE]. 00:04:20.822 --> 00:04:24.570 align:middle line:84% This is one of the most famous concrete poems of all time. 00:04:24.570 --> 00:04:27.480 align:middle line:84% "Silencio," which if you don't speak Spanish, means silent. 00:04:27.480 --> 00:04:28.331 align:middle line:90% So there's-- 00:04:28.331 --> 00:04:31.100 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:04:31.100 --> 00:04:33.455 align:middle line:84% There's that visual representation of it. 00:04:33.455 --> 00:04:34.830 align:middle line:84% But now we're also-- again, we've 00:04:34.830 --> 00:04:38.190 align:middle line:84% got this conflation of the visual and the auditory, 00:04:38.190 --> 00:04:41.400 align:middle line:84% even though what we're talking about is silence. 00:04:41.400 --> 00:04:44.640 align:middle line:84% But silence is an auditory realm phenomenon too. 00:04:44.640 --> 00:04:49.030 align:middle line:90% 00:04:49.030 --> 00:04:52.270 align:middle line:84% So tell me what that is, if all my other ones weren't 00:04:52.270 --> 00:04:53.980 align:middle line:90% hard to figure out. 00:04:53.980 --> 00:04:55.750 align:middle line:90% What's that? 00:04:55.750 --> 00:04:58.900 align:middle line:84% It's called a painting, for God's sake. 00:04:58.900 --> 00:05:00.776 align:middle line:90% It's all text. 00:05:00.776 --> 00:05:01.630 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:05:01.630 --> 00:05:02.530 align:middle line:90% Is it a poem? 00:05:02.530 --> 00:05:04.480 align:middle line:90% Is it a painting? 00:05:04.480 --> 00:05:05.850 align:middle line:90% Marcel tells us it's a painting. 00:05:05.850 --> 00:05:08.250 align:middle line:90% Should we believe him?