#pattern poetry

[artemisandhersilverbow]

I was actually speechless when my CD showed up today and "But Daddy I Love Him" lyrics stopped me in my tracks. CONCRETE POETRY??

Pattern poetry is probably the more accurate categorization for this ex., but I immediately thought the lyrics echo the shape of one of the most famous examples, "Easter Wings" by George Herbert.

I know the variants have different shapes for the lyrics (circle, square, octagon). But any googling of Concrete Poetry or pattern poetry will inevitably lead you back to the OG George Herbert (or like... ancient Greece, but ignore that for now). I also saw someone on Twitter say that the variants could even symbolize the many interpretations (and no true muse) of this song.

Below is a brief breakdown of "Easter Wings".

On its base level, in "Easter Wings" the speaker meditates on one's relationship to God. I have been thinking, prior to this booklet showing up at my house, that the "him" in BDILH could potentially be God. Or at least one interpretation of it could be. Sunday best, pearl clutching was an early tip off.

Anyway, pattern poetry is more than just shaping a poem into a fun shape or even an obvious shape. The physical shape and visual appearance of how the poem is printed works in combination with the themes and content of the poem to amplify the meaning. It adds another level (a third level?) where the poetry has to be seen to be fully understood. Also because you need to see the poem, authors use its shape to manipulate words, phrases, meanings. Essentially, if you heard the poem it would sound one way, but reading it will reveal the authors true meaning. Dear reader, indeed.

This is an oversimplification, but in "Easter Wings" the wider lines are, to borrow a phrase from "Robin," lighter. The narrowing signifying this turn to despair, pain, disconnect from God. Similarly BDILH lyrics narrow at the most biting part of the song and give way to that incredible running through field energy we end on.

And not for nothing, but the only way I would find the joke of "I'm having his baby, no I'm not," would be if she was talking about God. Lol iykyk.

Anyway, Herbert has another very famous poem. One taught to me in middle or high school - maybe you've seen it before too. It's called "The Altar". The first illustration is harder to read and a little more obvious, the second is how I've seen it reproduced more commonly (still the shape of an altar).

And naturally, the word altar made me think of another song from TTPD... So Long, London.

This woman terrifies me...

Anyway, Taylor wants you to put her reading glasses on! Album booklets, lyric videos, the choice is yours! As I always find with her booklets, she fully embraces writing out her lyrics as poetry. You'll notice a lot of changes from the Genius versions, for ex. Album booklet's punctuation, line breaks, new sentences, etc. have changed the entire "meaning" of lines/songs for me. Usually, whatever reframing I find is richer than what I had accepted on the first listen.

I've also noticed how simple the lyric videos for TTPD are in comparison to previous albums, but she's (ok her digital media team who I would not doubt are under STRICT instruction) playing with text quite a bit. Like Herbert above we have many instances of spacing, CAPS, vs lowercase, even collage like effects that completely reorder the lyrics, perhaps even the meaning.

[garadinervi]

Neide Dias de Sá, Untitled, (ink, letraset and cutting on paper; diptych), 1960s [Galeria Superfície, São Paulo. Poema Processo arquivo. © Neide Dias de Sá]

[usefulquotes7]

when i think back on my life when i was just a small, fragile child i wonder in what part did i change? my thought patterns? how did i think? i remember her but she has no idea who i am but we are somehow.. one?

[youngster-monster]

You're gonna carry that weight

Cowboy Bebop | All These Things That I've Done, The Killers | On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong | Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight), Emma Sulkowicz | You're So Cool, Nicole Dollanganger | Every Day I Am Trying New Techniques To Make Myself Disappear, E.E Scott | Papyrus of Ani | Impossible Weight, Deep Sea Diver | The Gang Carries a Corpse Up a Mountain, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia | an old poem about reflections, Grendel Menz | @jb-blunk | @intactics | The Glass Essay, Anne Carson (thank you @grapecaseschoices )| Henry V, Kenneth Branagh | I, Carrion (Icarian), Hozier | Carrying the Skeleton, Marina Abramović | Atlas, Serhii Hetmanchuk | Dark Knight questline, Final Fantasy XIV

(image descriptions in alt)

[lokilysolbitch]

DO WHAT YOU CAN AND DONT BE A DICK ON THE INTERNET

i was writing a post about how it's unhelpful to shame average people for not meeting your standards of activism and calling them evil and things like that bc shame is not a reliable motivator and you don't know these people blah blah blah. and then i ended up writing this so here u go:

like. let's imagine you're an average guy. you work a job under a shitty manager and you still can't pay rent and afford groceries at the same time. you have untreated physical and mental illness and/or trauma. you don't have energy to cook a full meal. one of the microwave foods you like is being recalled. lead or e. coli or something. you can't remember when you last had water. you are too tired to clean the mold and algae off the corners of your brita. and who knows what is in the tap water.

a new episode of your favorite show just came out. you post about it. someone comments or makes a video about you and several others who are not posting about [serious issue]. saying you are heartless and inhuman. and you've heard about [serious issue] on a site or from someone who is supposed to be the most trustworthy on this topic. this random person on the internet is telling you things that don't match up to that. they're telling you that you should've had researched more. that not knowing enough is not an excuse. there is mold in your brita filter.

the video about you has thousands of comments. they're saying they think you should know what it's like to experience [serious issue]. then maybe you would take it seriously. you have the privilege to post about your favorite show. you are being lazy. these people are like piranhas. your dinner has e. coli or something. you have to clean your brita.

you want to research [serious issue]. you care about people. you started to but you are hearing different stories. one of your sources is from the same internet the random person came from. you thought you weren't supposed to trust the internet? another source can't even stand up against itself. that one is supposed to be trustworthy.

you see someone getting torn apart for posting misinformation. comments say they should have done their research. these people are like piranhas.

now you're seeing it. raw footage. you need a break and your notifications are flooded. why haven't you posted about this yet??? it's the least you could do. are you lazy??? don't you care??? these people are like piranhas. you still need to clean the brita.

no more internet. you need to clean the brita. sponge, soap. tap water. thin green and black streaks coming off the corners of the pitcher. all done. well now the sponge has mold on it. new sponge. your brita filter is getting old. new filter. do you even deserve a new filter? do you deserve fresh water? whatever, just refill it. tap water. waiting. tap water. waiting. tap water, fridge. check your phone.

brita filters are getting recalled.

lead or e. coli or something.

[hedghost]

okay guys i wasn’t joking when i said i had the urge to write a poem - i call this one…

an ode to fa player

the weeks drag on, an endless stream

of days which just all seem the same

but then it comes, a shining beam:

the search bar where i type your name

you’re slow to load, my laptop groans

log in, breathe out,

oh wait,

you froze

log in again,

this time,

please work,

third time lucky,

this is beserk

but now the sound won’t fucking work

i press refresh, you glitch and jerk

i’m slamming my head against my desk

a loyal fan’s most gruelling test

your blue screen taunts me time again

i’ll just give up, i think,

but then!

finally, you’re sailing true

the screen no longer buffers blue

the picture? grainy

the commentary? shit

but, with the game, i don’t mind one bit

and yet you’re never quite on track

the buffering starts, the glitch is back

refresh, log in, okay, on a roll!

except now i’ve missed

a fucking goal

this is the wsl lament

the endless reams of time misspent

staring at your log in page

my watching interspersed with rage

you buffered then, you buffer still

braved only by the strong of will

your loading screen, abhorred by all,

was football’s greatest obstacle

and yet i’ll miss your shitty site

fa player,

my friend,

goodnight

[hersurvival]

It doesn't matter.

I've learned to play into it,

Use it to my advantage.

Just a girl.

The trauma of it all

Has left my brain damaged.

Rearranged. Patterned.

Marked with a curse.

My body covered in blood

Only I can see.

What else can I ever

Expect to be?

@nosebleedclub June 23rd - Patterned

[chadlesbianjasontodd]

Closely connected to the act of name signing was the act of writing poems on walls. As scholars have already pointed out, with beginnings traceable to the Six Dynasties, wall poems (tibishi) were already very widespread during the Tang. By Christopher Nugent's count, well over one thousand entries in the Complete Tang Poems had titles indicating that they began as inscriptions on some surface other than paper or scrolls. These surfaces included walls at places of gathering and transit, such as post stations, scenic sites, inns, and increasingly in the latter part of the Tang, Buddhist temples, which also served public roles for lay gatherings and performances. (100)

In one anecdote, a latecomer casts aspersions on a first writer's literary skills, comparing him to the general Xiang Yu (232-202 BCE), who was infamous for having learned just enough writing to manage his name: "Li Tang signed his name on a pavilion in Zhaoying County. When Wei Zhan [jinshi degree 865] saw it, he took a brush and dashed off a taunt: 'The rivers of Wei and Qin brighten the eyes, / but why is Xiren short on poetic spirit? / Perhaps he mastered only what Beauty Yu's husband could / learning to write just enough to put down his name.' " ... It would not be a stretch to imagine the sniggering of those who read this inscription in a frequented pavilion. (102)

For a degree seeker in Chang'an, these circuits of information and judgment received more discussion than the actual examination itself. Tang literati wrote copiously about activities such as name signing, public exposure, and triumph. It would not be an exaggeration to say that in ninth-century temples and popular recreation areas, the vertical spaces were teeming with verses that clamored for attention. (104)

selections on poetic graffiti from linda rui feng's city of marvel and transformation: chang'an and narratives of experience in tang dynasty china (university of hawaii press, 2015)

[uwmspeccoll]

It’s Fine Press Friday! 

Today we’re taking a deep dive into Songs for Gaia, a slim edition of poetry by Gary Snyder (b. 1930). This understated, beautifully-crafted letterpress volume was printed in 1979 for Kah Tai Alliance at Copper Canyon in Port Townsend, WA, a fine press dedicated solely to poetry since its founding in 1972, and was handbound by poet and bookbinder Samuel Green. It features woodblock illustrations by poet and printmaker Michael Corr (b. 1940), who learned his craft while living in Kyoto from block printer and illustrator Takeji Asano (1900-1999). Asano was a notable figure in Japan’s Sōsaku-hanga woodblock printing movement. The book is quarter bound in cloth with a cover marbled in a finely executed combed feather pattern, a touch that lends a hint of psychedelia to its otherwise traditional aesthetics. It was released in a limited edition of 300 copies.   

Snyder, who is popularly known for his time amongst and spiritualist influence on the Beat poets and the counterculture of their generation (along with Kerouac’s portrayal of him as Japhy Ryder in the 1958 novel The Dharma Bums) spent 13 years in Japan (1956-1968) studying Zen Buddhism, forestry, and ecology. A scholar of Asian languages versed in cultural anthropology, he also studied calligraphy with accomplished calligrapher and seal carver Charles Leong during his time at Reed College. Snyder’s calligraphic signature graces the half-title page of this edition.  

This modest yet potent edition of Songs for Gaia is a fitting form for the work of a poet whom writer Bob Steuding once characterized as cultivating an “accessible” style and “a new kind of poetry that is direct, concrete, non-Romantic and ecological.” As Snyder wrote of his own work in A Controversy of Poets, “I try to hold both history and wilderness in mind, that my poems may approach the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times.”  

View more Fine Press Friday posts

View more woodblock illustration posts

View more marbling posts (shout out to Alice, our resident marbling expert!)

-Ana, Special Collections Graduate Fieldworker

[vox-anglosphere]

The impact of William Morris on British textiles was unsurpassed.

[almostarts]

Isamu Noguchi’s Akari light sculptures of the 1950s,

Produced by Ozeki & Co., Ltd. in Gifu, Japan, 

Lacquered bamboo collars (wa), Mulberry bark (washi) paper.

(Dimension and assembly brochure for Bonniers, c.1954).

Photo: Kevin Noble. ©INFGM / ARS

Courtesy: The Noguchi Museum

[garadinervi]

Neide Dias de Sá, Untitled, (ink and letraset on vegetal paper), 1967 [Galeria Superfície, São Paulo. © Neide Dias de Sá]

[faaun]

Jack Marsh (2005), Friendship Otherwise - Toward a Levinasian Description of Personal Friendship

[tweetsongs]

relistening to the shadowfell arc of c1 and thinking about hardwon/deadeye parallels...both of them old adventurers with complicated relationships to the crick, beset by young adventurers who have the wide-eyed optimism that they've lost. both meeting the group at a low point and serving as a cautionary tale about trust and hope. both of them running away because they couldn't protect the things that were dear to them. finding a younger sister figure and confiding in them. conflict with old cobb. deciding that they want to go home, at the very end.

[im-an-anthusiast]

Is It Sweet?

There may be something, lodged deep in my throat

I try to swallow it, only to choke

Constantly found, though it is never sought

As if not there, until you feel its poke

Dreading the absence, of things still not here

Deafened by whispers, that I can’t quite hear

Half-formed memories, of things yet to be

Blinded by visions, that I cannot see

Each greedy gulp, makes it harder to eat

With each and every taste, it gets less sweet

A bitter nightmare, that was never dreamed

I have lost my taste; tell me, is it sweet?

A presence of something, digs through my throat

Makes itself known still, by making me choke

A constant presence, that cannot be fought

Presenting as absent, just to provoke

An unsure certainty – this is not right

Don’t know how or why – but I must be right

A punch to, and a feeling from the gut

That my throat's inside, shouldn’t be all cut

Each starved mouthful, gets harder to resist

With every lick and lap, it grows less sweet

A sour daydream, that might not be dreamed

I have lost my senses; tell me, is it sweet?

An absence of feeling, eats at my throat

I almost can’t tell, as I start to choke

An absence, present longer than I thought

Presenting falsely, wrapped in a sweet cloak

Choking on the words, I have yet to speak

Surely, there is an answer I can seek?

Pained by the words, you have yet to say

Surely, there has to be another way?

Each hungry swallow, brings closer to it

With each bite, you learn – it was never sweet

A tasteless something, that I hope is dreamed

I have swallowed my tongue – and choked on it

[outofmychaos]

so many you's and so little me