| IN HER INTRODUCTION to this
international collection of "poems in the shape of things" (9), Bowler
suggests that many early picture texts were in some way connected with
magic, ritual, religion and superstition (7), and that shaped texts were
frequently used for protection, healing or for the purposes of control
(8). Bowler's claim that "at first one sees a curious picture, then a difficult
conundrum is solved as the words are finally understood" (10) suggests
that the meaning is only revealed through contemplation of the text and
the reader's initial visual experience is one of confusion, even though
we delight in the picture poem because it "represent[s] metaphorically
the greater spiritual urge for unity and for the reconciliation of opposites"
(11). Bowler suggests that "new poetry" (such as concrete poetry)
is characterized by a vocabulary without boundaries, untranslatable because
it is in its immediate and total state (14). It is not an elitist or bourgeois
poetry; its "guiding impulse is a democratic force," and its gesture is
toward a "public word, living its own life" (14). Implicit in Bowler's
reading of concrete poetry is the claim that it has an immediate accessibility,
appealing primarily to the visual and to the public. (Julia Bleakney.) |