Approaches to Teaching Concrete Poetry: An Annotated Bibliography

Abstract

It is an unfortunate fact that many contemporary poetry courses fail to examine concrete poetry. It is unfortunate because a knowledge of concrete poetry not only provides valuable insight and inspiration for creative activity concerning language and words, but is absolutely necessary in these times because of the effect concrete poetry is having on metaphor, poetry, and language in general. Concrete poetry is primarily concerned with the process of human perception and the interdisciplinary cross-over of mediums and aesthetics. By teaching concrete poetry, teachers can encourage students to develop a more flexible and creative attitude toward communication and a dynamic sensibility regarding perceptual experience. Three types of concrete poetry are generally distinguishable: (1) visual (or optic); (2) phonetic (or sound); and (3) kinetic (moving in a visual succession). The visual poem is intended to be seen like a painting; the sound poem is composed to be listened to like music; and the kinetic poem is constructed to be viewed with a sense of succession, as in a motion picture. To understand concrete poetry is to realize how dependent the concept of concreteness is on the abstract concepts of space and time. Briefly stated, optic poetry relies on the spatial distinction between form and background, our perception of the dimensions of surface (page, poster, glass, or whatever the material of the poem) as a whole. In phonetic poetry the figure (sound) rises off the ground (silence), producing a configuration of filled time against empty time. And in kinetic poetry the dimensions of the visual figure are extended to produce a temporal configuration only possible through the sense of succession. Although many people believe the roots of concrete poetry to be media based, concrete poetry can be traced to such diverse origins as the picture writing of Chinese characters and the anagrams of early Christian monks, and later to developments in the fields of architecture, painting, music, sculpture, and industrial design. In its present form, concrete poetry has been with us since the middle 1950s, but too few teachers have explored the areas it opens or adapted the benefits it offers. It is hoped that the approaches and resources described in this bibliography will serve as a starting point for more thought and research by those teachers inter