some background to the visual poem boxes
The visual poem boxes I'm currently producing have their roots back at the beginning of 2008.
Having started to study for an MA in Creative Writing I started to expand my reading of poetry, which led to me stumbling across Caroline Bergvall's Fig. That in turn led me back to UbuWeb and their archives of innovative poetry - I was already aware of Ubuweb, but really only as a resource for artist's films at that point. Combined with a brief overview of historic poetries within the MA, UbuWeb started me thinking about visual poetry and sound poetry as potentially interesting avenues to explore. That led to me experimenting with visual poetry, which at that point I quickly realised I wasn't very good at, and took up experimenting with sound poetry.
But during the initial attempts to create visual poetry I became interested in the possibilities of paper or card construction. This mainly constituted printing text on to the paper or card and then assembling a shape. These were generally quite simple but one or two were more complex. I found the results disappointing, however, and could not see a way to make really compelling pieces of work in the same way that I could with sound. That said, the majority of my visual poems were attempts to use scanners, photocopiers and software to try and manipulate letter forms. Most of these were shit, to put it succinctly.
During the late spring, early summer of 2008 I finally started to collect the pieces of street cutlery I found lying around. It was something I'd talked about for a while, and already named, but never did anything about. This is not immediately relevant, but becomes important later on.
After around March 2008 I stopped attempting any visual poetry until October, when I picked up Caroline Bergvall's Plessjør during her reading at The Other Room. This suddenly gave me a way in to visual poetry. I realised that rather than struggling with technology I couldn't control very well, or trying to invent elaborate paper forms, I could simply use paper and ink. The paper itself could be torn or screwed-up, the ink could be applied with a brush or fingers, or poured on. I also experimented with pencil, pen, and black tape. There then followed a few months of high productivity, until I ran out of steam a bit, and launched on the project of 12 monthly sound poetry CDs through 2009.
Other than a few inconclusive attempts to create new visual poetry very little happened through 2009, although I remained determined to return to it. This was especially the case after I was approached to contribute pieces for the issue of Ekleksographia edited by Philip Davenport.
Earlier this year however I had the idea of making individual boxes for my growing collection of street cutlery. These currently have holes cut in the top, and text around four sides, although I plan to re-box them in a different and much plainer way. Boxes were not an especially new idea, I had contemplated making boxes in the past without ever getting round to it. This may date back to when I studied publishing production at the London College of Printing in 89/90. I remember being told that somewhere within the college card packaging was designed - the kind of thing you see in supermarkets holding six-packs of bottled beer, and any number of other uses. Since that time I've had an abiding interest in card packing, and in pulling it apart to see how it's constructed. Some of it is beautifully simple and astonishingly effective.
After boxing the street cutlery, and determining almost immediately to do it better, I had a large amount of card still lying around. The story from then is much as you see it detailed in the posts below. Having started to refocus on neglected projects I set myself aside last weekend to attempt some new visual poetry. That started with a number of pen sketches in a notebook, three of which I was happy with and developed further. Inspired by a couple of pieces of work I'd seen, specifically something I'd seen only two days previously, I found I had an image in my head of cuts in card. I scribbled down the idea - a 'box with delicate cuts in one or more surfaces' - and quickly developed the idea. Initially it was not clear whether the cut out forms should be letters, visual poetry shapes, or something other. For simplicity, and to avoid anything too easily pinned down to signifying something, visual poetry forms were chosen.
Having started to study for an MA in Creative Writing I started to expand my reading of poetry, which led to me stumbling across Caroline Bergvall's Fig. That in turn led me back to UbuWeb and their archives of innovative poetry - I was already aware of Ubuweb, but really only as a resource for artist's films at that point. Combined with a brief overview of historic poetries within the MA, UbuWeb started me thinking about visual poetry and sound poetry as potentially interesting avenues to explore. That led to me experimenting with visual poetry, which at that point I quickly realised I wasn't very good at, and took up experimenting with sound poetry.
But during the initial attempts to create visual poetry I became interested in the possibilities of paper or card construction. This mainly constituted printing text on to the paper or card and then assembling a shape. These were generally quite simple but one or two were more complex. I found the results disappointing, however, and could not see a way to make really compelling pieces of work in the same way that I could with sound. That said, the majority of my visual poems were attempts to use scanners, photocopiers and software to try and manipulate letter forms. Most of these were shit, to put it succinctly.
During the late spring, early summer of 2008 I finally started to collect the pieces of street cutlery I found lying around. It was something I'd talked about for a while, and already named, but never did anything about. This is not immediately relevant, but becomes important later on.
After around March 2008 I stopped attempting any visual poetry until October, when I picked up Caroline Bergvall's Plessjør during her reading at The Other Room. This suddenly gave me a way in to visual poetry. I realised that rather than struggling with technology I couldn't control very well, or trying to invent elaborate paper forms, I could simply use paper and ink. The paper itself could be torn or screwed-up, the ink could be applied with a brush or fingers, or poured on. I also experimented with pencil, pen, and black tape. There then followed a few months of high productivity, until I ran out of steam a bit, and launched on the project of 12 monthly sound poetry CDs through 2009.
Other than a few inconclusive attempts to create new visual poetry very little happened through 2009, although I remained determined to return to it. This was especially the case after I was approached to contribute pieces for the issue of Ekleksographia edited by Philip Davenport.
Earlier this year however I had the idea of making individual boxes for my growing collection of street cutlery. These currently have holes cut in the top, and text around four sides, although I plan to re-box them in a different and much plainer way. Boxes were not an especially new idea, I had contemplated making boxes in the past without ever getting round to it. This may date back to when I studied publishing production at the London College of Printing in 89/90. I remember being told that somewhere within the college card packaging was designed - the kind of thing you see in supermarkets holding six-packs of bottled beer, and any number of other uses. Since that time I've had an abiding interest in card packing, and in pulling it apart to see how it's constructed. Some of it is beautifully simple and astonishingly effective.
After boxing the street cutlery, and determining almost immediately to do it better, I had a large amount of card still lying around. The story from then is much as you see it detailed in the posts below. Having started to refocus on neglected projects I set myself aside last weekend to attempt some new visual poetry. That started with a number of pen sketches in a notebook, three of which I was happy with and developed further. Inspired by a couple of pieces of work I'd seen, specifically something I'd seen only two days previously, I found I had an image in my head of cuts in card. I scribbled down the idea - a 'box with delicate cuts in one or more surfaces' - and quickly developed the idea. Initially it was not clear whether the cut out forms should be letters, visual poetry shapes, or something other. For simplicity, and to avoid anything too easily pinned down to signifying something, visual poetry forms were chosen.
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Graham
http://grahamdunning.com