Journal

Concerning Concrete Poetry

Aram Saroyan's 'A Poster Poem'

Paul was invited to talk at Grafik’s Letterform Live, the brief was to choose a single letterform which relates to the theme ‘BRUTAL’ and talk about the context and story around it for ten minutes. He used it as an opportunity to talk about all things Concrete Poetry, a subject that he is a little obsessed with! Here he muses on his 'letterform':

I chose the fascinating ‘letterform’ and minimal poem ‘A Poster Poem’ (1965) by Aram Saroyon, often called the four legged ‘M’. It is a poem that refers to itself and to the material of language — the letters and their form. It confronts the viewer to consider the form of the glyph / poem: 

“Is it an ‘M’?”
“Is it an ’N’?”
“Is it a printing error?” 
“What is it!?”

I read / view it as the consequence of a collapsing alphabet, where the ‘M’ and ’N’ have been compressed and merge into each other. Or, alternatively the ‘M’ and ’N’ are about to be born, the moment when ‘M’ and ’N’ take form. The expansion, or birth of the alphabet.

Activated or translated into sound it hums “Mmmmmm”, resonating a vibration akin to the mantra “Om”, considered to be the first universal sound…

 

And here are Paul's slides (all 33 of them!):

 

Aram Saroyan, A poster poem, 1965
Pilot Plan For Concrete Poetry. Augusto De Campos, Haroldo De Campos & Décio Pignatari, 1958.
Stéphane Mallarmé, Un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard, 1897 (1914 Edition)
Stéphane Mallarmé, Un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard, 1897 (1914 Edition)
Pilot Plan For Concrete Poetry. Augusto De Campos, Haroldo De Campos & Décio Pignatari, 1958.
eugen gomringer, silence, 1954
eugen gomringer, the "o" poem, 1953
Pilot Plan For Concrete Poetry. Augusto De Campos, Haroldo De Campos & Décio Pignatari, 1958.
Pilot Plan For Concrete Poetry. Augusto De Campos, Haroldo De Campos & Décio Pignatari, 1958.
eugen gomringer, wind, 1960
Guillaume Apollinaire, Il pluet, 1916
Bob Cobbing, Worm, 1966
Eugen Gomringer, From line to Constellation, 1954
Augusto de Campos, com som (with sound), 1956
Augusto de Campos, terremoto (earthquake), 1957
Diter Rot, Some Variations on 44, 1957
Diter Rot, ut tu, 1956
The Concrete Historical. Roland Greene, 1992
Hansjörg Mayer, First Alphabet, 1961—2
Hansjörg Mayer, First Alphabet, 1961—2
Hansjörg Mayer, Last Alphabet, 1969
Wolf Vostell, Futura22, 1967
The poem as a functional object. Eugen Gromringer, 1960
Reinhard Döhl, Apple, 1965
Mary Ellen Solt, Forsythia, 1965
Ian Hamilton Finlay, Acrobats, 1964
Jonathan Williams. How I survived bucolic plauge & came unto concrete, 1967
Kurt Schwitters, ZA, 1922
Dom Sylvester Houédard, frog pond plop, 1965
Dom Sylvester Houédard, Ken Cox Memorial, 1968
Emmett Williams, Méditation no2, 1958
Eugen Gomringer, From line to Constellation, 1954