Screen Capture: Another Tool for Discovering your Favorite Letter (the letter K)
Dan Waber’s Another Tool for Discovering your Favorite Letter (ATDFL) is an online interactive poem, a mandala-like, kaleidoscopic hallucinogenic roundabout tilt-a-whirl hurricane pinwheel rabbit's hole sawblade exploration of the letters of the alphabet and the keyboard.
You type a key and on the screen that glyph begins rotating. The up and down arrow keys allow you to control the opacity — how much of a visual trail the letters leave. The left and right arrow keys control the speed of rotation. And the space bar allows you to do that roller rink thing where suddenly, everyone — G, }, h, and * — skates in the opposite direction. There’s also an option for choosing the font. I think I might have a fontcrush on Times Roman h.
The first thing you might notice about The Malady of Death is the visual components to this book. It is slim, only sixty pages of text, like many volumes of poems. On each page the font size is larger than most large-print editions of books. I measure the opening capitol “Y” beginning “You” at one-half of a centimeter. The page that appears the fullest contains one-hundred and sixteen words. A page appearing one of the sparest contains sixty words. Section breaks appear as multiple paragraph breaks, a multitude of white space, and an occasional asterisk.
Visual poetry has always fascinated me because it’s poetry but it ain’t.
It often contains its own borderblur. Image < --> language
Imaguage. Langmage.
What the oral is to the written, visual poetry is too.
What kind of reading is needed to read visual poetry? Is it different than reading other poetry? Than looking at visual art? Than reading ‘text’ in visual art?
Weak Links: Introduction to Hannah Weiner's WEEKS
First edition of Weeks published by Xexoxial Editions in 1990, with photos by Barbara Rosenthal, and my introducton.
Full text from Xexoxial
Dan Waber's 'Another Tool for Discovering your Favorite Letter'
When is a text not a text?
Dan Waber’s Another Tool for Discovering your Favorite Letter (ATDFL) is an online interactive poem, a mandala-like, kaleidoscopic hallucinogenic roundabout tilt-a-whirl hurricane pinwheel rabbit's hole sawblade exploration of the letters of the alphabet and the keyboard.
You type a key and on the screen that glyph begins rotating. The up and down arrow keys allow you to control the opacity — how much of a visual trail the letters leave. The left and right arrow keys control the speed of rotation. And the space bar allows you to do that roller rink thing where suddenly, everyone — G, }, h, and * — skates in the opposite direction. There’s also an option for choosing the font. I think I might have a fontcrush on Times Roman h.
Robert Grenier, "Language Objects: Letters in Space, 1970 - 2013" at Southfirst Gallery, Brooklyn
Duras & the cinematic novel
The poet's novel
The first thing you might notice about The Malady of Death is the visual components to this book. It is slim, only sixty pages of text, like many volumes of poems. On each page the font size is larger than most large-print editions of books. I measure the opening capitol “Y” beginning “You” at one-half of a centimeter. The page that appears the fullest contains one-hundred and sixteen words. A page appearing one of the sparest contains sixty words. Section breaks appear as multiple paragraph breaks, a multitude of white space, and an occasional asterisk.
It's poetry but it ain't
Objects in visual poetry can be read closer than they appear
Visual poetry has always fascinated me because it’s poetry but it ain’t.
It often contains its own borderblur. Image < --> language
Imaguage. Langmage.
What the oral is to the written, visual poetry is too.
What kind of reading is needed to read visual poetry? Is it different than reading other poetry? Than looking at visual art? Than reading ‘text’ in visual art?