Word & Image

A Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry

ISSN: 0266-6286 (Print) 1943-2178 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/twim20

Poetry of visual enactment: the concrete poem

Enikö Bollobás

To cite this article: Enikö Bollobás (1986) Poetry of visual enactment: the concrete poem, Word
& Image, 2:3, 279-285, DOI: 10.1080/02666286.1986.10435350

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02666286.1986.10435350

Published online: 31 May 2012.

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 Poetry of visual enactment: the
concrete poem
ENIKO BOLLOBAS

The poetry of visual enactment can be traced back to this century's

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general dissatisfaction with the cognitive structures oflanguage as well as

to the distrust of the truth-value of representation; hence it might be
viewed as the embodiment of man's search for 'Truth'. One can explain it
by the conviction that sight holds a primacy among the senses as well as
with the assumption that the ocular is 'the sine qua non of truth, its own
evidence' . 1 One might link it to the objectivist-concretist impulses born I -Charles Bernstein, 'Words and
pictures', Sagetrieb, 2 (Ig83), p. 14. 'There
out of the avant-garde 'revolution of the word', or treat it simply as a is a tacit acceptance of the visual as brute
minority technique of free verse prosody punctuated by the regained reality: the objects that we apprehend
emphasis on visuality and typography. One might also relate it to the appear to make a claim to exist outside of
hermetic tradition, to word magic and to the original meaning of the word language, silent exemplars of physical
fact' (p. I 5).
poet, maker. Indeed, concrete poetry allows all these explanations,
histories and theoretical frameworks. But, I am convinced, its most
important aspect- the one that is not independent of the above listed ties
and connections but rather brings them together into an integral unity-
is the performative nature of concrete poetry.
The notion of the performative was born with reference to certain
verbs in ordinary language but has been extended since, and it is in its
extended and even metaphorical sense that I would like to use it. As such,
it might serve as the focal point capable of uniting the claims about the
poetics of visual enactment, poetry as action, poetry as ritual relying on
magic, the solidity of language, and the text as a spatial configuration.
Language can be considered both as a mode of knowledge and as a
mode of action, corresponding to description and performance, or,
grammatically, to the constative-performative distinction as introduced
into general linguistics and the philosophy of language by J. L. Austin.2 2- J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with
Words (Oxford: Oxford uP, 1962).
Constatives, descriptive statements, express a 'scientistic' aspect of
language, where language is considered as a mode of knowledge. The
meaning of the constative utterance is the fact it states. Its truth-value
depends on the state of affairs it describes or speaks about, thus it may be
true or false. For example, we accept the constative utterance 'The wall is
painted red' as true if it corresponds to certain facts in reality, namely, if
the wall is indeed red. Stating facts is an important function oflanguage,
since the basis of all knowledge is of this kind, empirical observations
recording sense experiences.
But language, beside stating facts and describing, has another
function: in and by language we can perform actions. In the so-called
performative utterances such as 'I promise to give you ten dollars', saying
the sentence does the promising. Performatives reflect a dramatic aspect

WORD & IMAGE, VOL. 2, NO.3, JULY-SEPTEMBER 1986 279

 of speech; they constitute language in terms of action. The performatives
are:
-non-descriptive utterances, and as such cannot be interpreted within
traditional truth-based semantics;
-utterances with the force of actions which they do not describe but enact
and constitute;
-utterances where language and action are united; language has the force of
action; thus such utterances belong to the world of actions rather than
being utterances about actions.
-For a performative to have .force, it has to be uttered according to certain
constitutive rules, which are shared by all participants.
The concrete poem seems to comply with the performative in several
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3- Mary Ellen Solt (ed.), 'A world look
at concrete poetry', Concrete Poetry: A
World View (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1970), p. 13.
respects.
I The concrete poem aims at enactment, presentation and performance
instead of description, representation and interpretation. Form 'per-
forms' content. 'All definitions of concrete poetry', Mary Ellen Solt
asserts, 'can be reduced to the same formula: form = content/content=
form' .3 The concrete poem turns on the identity of image and idea, where
the visual image itself is the idea. Emmett Williams, one of the most
conscious practitioners and theorists of concrete poetry, stresses this
identity: 'The visual element in [concrete poetry] tended to be structural,
a consequence of the poem, a 'picture' of the lines of force of the work

like attracts like

like attracts like
like attracts like
like attracts like
like attracts like
like attracts like
like attracts like
likeattractslike
likettractlike
likattraclke
lillttratlle
liiMrati~
Figure 1. Emmett Williams, 'Like
Attracts Like'. littelikts
280 ENIKO BOLLOBAS
 itself, and not merely textural'. 4 It aspires to be
direct presentation, not 'paraphrase'. Emmett Wil- 4- Emmett Williams (ed.), 'Foreword',
liams' 'Like Attracts Like' (figure r) performs the Anthology of Concrete Poetry (New York:
Something Else Press, 1967), p. vi.
action it reports in an obvious way: structure
follows, indeed enacts, meaning. On this poem
Williams writes: 'This particular poem says what it
does and does what it says, and I can't think of three 5 - Williams, Anthology of Concrete Poetry,
no pagination.
other words that would work as well in this
6- Ellen Solt, 'concrete poetry', p. 59·
construction'.5 The poem is literally built on the 7- Ibid., p. 79·
performative principle: saying and doing are one. 8- Ibid., p. 7·

rendering the legible illegible

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rendering the illegible

rend~tlsgitibe Figure 2. Claus Bremer, 'Rendering the
Legible Illegible'.
r~rhegriJig Figure 3· Jon Whyte, 'Urge- Emerge'.
urge urge

Although Claus Bremer does not belong to the

American scene, his 'Rendering the Legible Ille-
gible' well illustrates the performative nature of the
urge urge
concrete poem: the structure of the piece is what the
poem is about (figure 2). Both poems evidence what
Ellen Solt points out about concrete poetry: 'the
urge urge
pure concrete poem extracts from language an
essential meaning structure and arranges it in space
as an ideogram or constellation - as a structural urge urge

word design'. 6 Jon Whyte's piece, playing with the

sound association and sense differences of the words urge urge

urge, merge and emerge, also turns on the performative

merge merge
principle: the words perform their own meanings in
mergerge
a constellation that also enacts the meaning rela- merger
ergo
tions (figure 3). merger
emergege
n The concrete poem purports to embody the emergeemerge
primordial unity between language and action,
word and deed. 'Poetry turns from art to action', emerge emerge

Ellen Solt asserts. 7 Hence the name 'action poem'

and its ties with happenings. These poems are often emerge emerge

meant as performance pieces when the poem

'happens' not on the page but in oral performance. emerge emerge
Jean-Jacques Cory's grid of rhymes (figure 4), for
example, is meant for both visual and aural percep-
tion: it is both a notational-concretist play and the emerge emerge
instructions for its performance. Such a piece has its
links with improvisation since here composition and
performance are one. Composition is determined
purely by the sound, the tactile quality of the word, emerge emerge
 Yean Terrene Sordine
wean serene between

Dean Tontine Tangerine

keen convene nectarine

'F~en Canteen Tambourine

jean unclean contravene

Seen Eighteen Submarine

glean colleen guillotine
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Lean Fourteen Misdemean

spleen nineteen quarantine

Clean Routine Bombazine

sheen machine brigantine

Bean Chlorine lntravene

green tureen unforseen

Queen Fifteen Crinoline

mean sixteen evergreen

Scene Sardine Magazine

mien careen gabardine

Quean Marine Margarine

screen spalpeen vaseline

Lien Umpteen Velveteen

mesne unseen secotine

Obscene Shagreen Nicotine

demean shebeen kerosene
whereas their serial rhythm seems to be defined by the positioning of
verse-grids.
III The focus on the physical/material substance of language, the
reduction of its elements to 'word anatomies', suggests that the language
material is treated as forceful and thus poetic in itself. Ellen Solt considers
this material consciousness as the most fundamental feature of the
concrete poem: 'there is a fundamental requirement which the various
7- Ibid., p. 79· kinds of concrete poetry meet: concentration upon the physical material
8- Ibid., p. 7· from which the poem or text is made' .s

282 ENIKO BOLLOBAS

 Light Night Acolyte
bright might candlelight

Kite Slight Expedite

flight spite reunite

Knight Alight Dynamite

white insight oversight

Bite Delight Recondite

fight moonlight impolite
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Smite Foresight Overnight

rite invite appetite

Height Incite Anchorite

fright excite watertight

Mite Ignite Bipartite

right sunlight theodolite

Blight Twilight Troglodyte

plight requite neophyte

Site Indict Bedlamite

quite outright parasite

Sight Midnight Weathertight

sprite starlight satellite

Cite Recite Vulcanite

sleight downright underwrite

Bright Polite Stalactite

tight contrite stalagmite

Write Affright Hermaphrodite

trite aconite cosmopolite Figure 4· Jean-Jacques Cory, 'Rhymes'.

The belief that the written or spoken word is charged with magical
power goes back to primitive origins. Incantati~ns, invocations, enchant-
ments, spells and prayers are all ritual acts relying on word magic; they
are efforts to control forces by words. Since ancient times poets have been
 Figure 5· Denis Dunn, 'All of These L
L 0
Poetry'. A F
T E s 0
e f
HS
p E y
v 1
0 R 0

E T a
0
w
i k
s g

n 1
i
1 n
1 g
u i
a
s
i n
0 0
g1
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0
n i e
1 k
s
1 1
u f
0
s f
1 0
s
0
pers
n p
s y
a e
w c
e t
r i
a v
0 k r 1
0 d p e
f
1 0 w i
0

0
n
i t
n t s
g h e
at
i
n
0
a space
0 u n
f t d

space
v e
points a s

9- In Hungarian folklore, too, the word
has a magic power because it comes from
God (cf., the etymology of the Hungarian
word ige, meaning 'verb', 'word': 1. word
of God; 2. incantation, spell, that is, word
which, in the mouth of man, can be as
powerful as the word of God, and may
'do violence to the will of God'). But to
understand the belief in the effectiveness
of the uttered word, we only have to
think of the underlying idea of the
general custom of wishing good luck, or
wishing good health when taking a drink
or when sneezing: man hopes that by his
word he can exert some influence upon
the management of the world.
10- Denis Dunn in Ronald Gross and
George Quasha (eds.), Open Poet~v: Four
Anthologies of Extended Poems (New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1973), p. 302.
v 0 w of
i f r 1
s 0
e 0 0 g
0 y f k
p Yf
s k n a 0
0
1 0 1
ints 1 n
of w w
g
v 1 e
known who not only see and convey their visions, but also use language as
magic. 9 Word magic announces that by the elemental act of naming, men
and things change, are altered and redefined by adopting the nature and
qualities carried by the name. In this tradition, syllables and letters are
also thought to possess the same power as whole words do. Denis Dunn
(figure 5) seems to be totally aware of this: 'My aim is to reawaken the
mystical experience of language which dwells in its ancient roots; to
penetrate the outer conceptual layers of meaning which are the realm of
poetry and music.Io
IV An unlimited trust in language produces a new shape awareness
which is fundamentally different from that of the modernists- Pound's

284 ENIKO BOLLOBAS

 ideograms with which, Ed Sanders points out, he 'helped verse escape the
dungeon of the column inch', 11 or Williams' visually inspired poems like I I - Ed Sanders, Investigative Poetry (San

'A Pot of Flowers' and 'The Rose' (which are the poetic renderings of Francisco: City Lights, I976), p. 9·

Demuth's 'Tuberoses' and Gris' 'Roses') or 'Young Sycamore' (the

poetic translation of the tree in Stieglitz's photograph 'Spring Showers').
Of these, perhaps __'Young Sycamore' comes closest to the poetics of
enactment in developing, as Robert G. Lint has shown, a 'structural
image' of the tree, following, in its grammatical structure, the shape of the
tree. 12 I2- Robert G. Lint, 'The structural

The concrete poet, with utmost humility, follows the movements of image in Williams' "Young Sycamore"',
Language and Style, 7 (I974), pp. 205-208.
language fully realizes Olson's objectivism; while it minimizes the
meaning. The poet's job is not to master or control language (and force it
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into linear progression), but to participate in this performance where

spatial configurations are born. Such a belief in the mystical powers of
language fully realizes Olson's objectism; while it minimizes the
importance of 'the lyrical interference of the individual as ego', 13 it allows I3- Charles Olson, 'Projective Verse', in
Robert Creeley (ed.), Selected Writings
the reader to participate in the mystery of the poem's creation. The poet
(New York: New Directions, I966), p. 24.
produces a multi-valent text which the reader should actualize and thus
enter into a dialogue between poet and reader, poem and poet. The belief
in the autonomy of the language material and the wish to participate in
the creation of a work of art sets up a clear kinship between concrete
poetry (and the 'gestural poetics' of projectivism) and action painting,
the performative principle being fundamental to both. 14 I 4 - Cf. Jackson Pollack asserting: 'I feel

nearer, more part of the painting, since

The concrete poem of the performative kind, where words arrange
this way I can ... be in the painting ...
themselves in such a way that their shape is immanent to their meaning, the painting has a life of its own. I try to
seems to be the full realization of the postmodern claim about the let it come through'. From 'My painting',
discovery ofform (as opposed to imposed form). The romantic obsession quoted by Edward Lucie-Smith,
Movements in Art since 1945 (London:
with cognition through language and the projectivist claim about writing Thames and Hudson, I969), pp. 33-34.
as a phenomenological activity are both operative here, making, indeed,
'poesis' out of this writing; 'poesis' which is defined by David Antin as
'those linguistic acts of invention & discovery through which the mind
IS- David Antin, quoted on the back
explores the transformational power of language & discovers & invents cover of New Wilderness Letters, I Uanuary
the world & itself' .Is I977), by Jerome Rothenberg.