Concrete Poetry: A Brief Structural-Historical Guideline

Author(s): Dcio Pignatari and Jon M. Tolman

Source: Poetics Today, Vol. 3, No. 3, Poetics of the Avant-Garde (Summer, 1982), pp. 189-
195
Published by: Duke University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1772398
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 Concrete Poetry
A Brief Structural-Historical Guideline *

DECIO PIGNATARI

Ezra Pound, based on Fenollosa's studies of Chinese writing, gives u

elementary but clear idea of the ideogram. How do the Chinese define
color red without using red? With the abbreviated signs for
rose cherry
rust flamingo
"The Chinese 'word,' or ideogram,
KNOWS." (Pound 1960:22).
Concrete poetry, going beyond th
as practiced by Pound, introduces s
element of poetic structure. In that
reality is created. Traditional linear
If we were to put this in Joycean
say that concrete poetry results fr
the ineluctable modality of the visi
audible, in a very short space of tim
Joyce, like Pound, does not use
element of composition. He achiev
words a small verbivocovisual ide
silvamoonlake.1
This example also illustrates that
which Joyce began in Ulysses, and
maximum complexity, Finnegans W
With reference to spatial achievem
impressive work of Mallarme, Un
poetic work consciously and struct

*Article originally published in ad-arquitetu

April, 1957). Translated by Jon M. Tolman,

1. Of interest here is the Joycean play on t

phonetic representation of the English w
Portuguese-speaking reader, less so to the a

? Poetics Today, Vol. 3

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190 DECIO PIGNATARI

temporality. The problems advanced by Mallarme's the

subdivisions of the Idea," cover, today, the main ar
concrete poetry. This is so because the realization of
required that the space of a page be used as an element o
words in different typefaces, in upper and lower case, a
indications for reading, which make of the page a true
score. This poem represents for concrete poetry what
represents for electronic music, a Malidvitch or a Mond
painting, and a Gropius, a Mies van der Rohe or a Le C
represent for modern architecture.
Visually oriented poetry can be found in Rabelais, Lew
Dadaists and futurists, but the first attempt to systematize
on the visually figurative poem was made by Apoll
calligrams, which demonstrate in their failure the ins
procedure. Nonetheless, under the pseudonym of G
Apollinaire approached the problem seriously. In his
"Devant l'ideogramme d'Apollinaire," with references t
"Lettre-Oc6an," he said: "I say ideogram because, after
there can be no doubt that certain modern writing
ideography." Later Apollinaire declares that the above m
is revolutionary "because it is necessary that our int
accustomed to comprehending synthetico-ideograph
analytico-discursively" (1914).
This is an affirmation to which concrete poets can su
reservation. However, Apollinaire was a victim of
preconception. Without ever having attempted the
physiognomic configuration, he wanted to achieve some
pure ideogram, or pure figurative design, and he fell i
decorativeness: poems in the form of a mandolin, the
machine gun. This of course made any rhythmic str
impossible and hindered the view of the true problem, w
was that of movement.
Cummings, the American, saw Apollinaire's mistake. He escaped from
the calligram and succeeded in achieving real ideograms, using the best of
typographic resources, even though his typography betrays habits of
artisanship. Cummings uses letters and punctuation marks. Beginning
with a letter, isolated or placed into relief with the first word, cummings
weaves a story punctuated by lyric or satyric accidents, obliging the words
to expressionistic gestures throughout the poem. Cummings exploits fully
the physiognomic peculiarities of certain letters, which did not occur to
Apollinaire:
mOOn Over tOwns mOOn

In the following example, the upper and lower case and punctuat
marks are used to obtain the scintillations of the stars in Morse code:

bright
bRight s??? big
(soft)

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 A Brief Structural-Historical Guideline 191

In concrete poetry we have some examples of the utilization of

physiognomic resources:
a) In the poem "si-ln-cio" ("si-len-ce"), by Haroldo de Campos, it is the
material itself - black paper - which collaborates in the creation-re-creation
of experience, eating away the edges of the words on the right side of the
poem, descending and functioning structurally with the white letters and the
word "silence," fragmented and in upper case, which permeates the whole
block of lower case.
b) In "o formigueiro" ("anthill"), by Ferreira Gullar, the letter "g" is made to
behave like an ant.2
c) In "ovonovelo" ("eggskein"), by Augusto de Campos, the gestation of the
child-poem, in a slow multiplication of elements- similar cells ("ovo + novo
+ velo + novelo"-"novo no velho") ends by resolving itself in the purely
visual and physiognomic plane with 4 oval sections.3

In Brazil, beyond rare, chance finds - by Mario de Andrade and Oswal

de Andrade (the latter having the advantage of a taste for using the wor
directly, whereupon it functions as an anti-metaphor) -only Joao Cabra
de Melo Neto has stated some problems of interest with lucidity. In som
of his poems, the word, naked and dry; the spare diction, the substantiv
choice of the word; the orthogonal, architectural, neoplastic structure o
the stanzas; the play of equal elements, are placed at the service of
didactic will to a direct language. This lesson should not be forgotten:
Como nao ha noite Since there is no night
cessa t6da fonte; All fountains stop;
como nio hai fonte Since there is no fountain
cessa t6da fuga. All flights stop.
The engineer saw things clearly.4 "Antiode - Against So-Called Profoun
Poetry" marks the borderline of the dissociation of word-object ('"flower is
the word flower") - and would have announced the return to the object i
the concrete sense, had the poet not preferred to orient himself in another
direction, more humble and traditional, but not without attaining a wor
of interest. We owe to Joio Cabral the first lucid attack on the lyric jargon
and the metaphoric-lyriphorous plague that devastates national and worl
poetry. But it would fall to concrete poetry to take up a tradition lost for 60
years. It would do so with critical foundations and with the resolution o
continuity and amplitude.
"Concrete poetry begins by assuming a total responsibility befor
language," as Augusto de Campos has said. In this way we achieve th
isomorphic, critical synthesis of the word-object relationship. "Pitcher"
the word "pitcher" and the pitcher itself as content, that is, as designate
object. The word "pitcher" is the thing of the thing, the pitcher of th

2. A poem presented on small posters during the National Exposition of Concrete Art (a
the Museum of Art in Sdo Paulo in December, 1956 and at the Ministry of Education an
Culture, Rio de Janeiro, February, 1957). It was never published [JMT].
3. Ovo = egg; novo = new; velo = fleece (by extension hair on skin, i.e., pubic hair
novelo = skein of yarn; novo no velho = the new in the old [JMT].
4. A play on the title of one of Cabral's books, O Engenheiro [JMT].

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192 DECIO PIGNATARI

pitcher, like "the sea in the sea" of Baudelaire. Isomorp

tendency of concrete poetry to respect the integrity
abolish deformations and atomizations, to the point
outdated, in a stage of superior drasticity, the experime
of a cummings. Not to mention, naturally, the figurativ
Apollinaire, of the Futurists, Lettrists and Sonorists, wi
poetry maintains only those contacts necessary for the
location of problems. Concrete poetry is the exact
Surrealism and Expressionism.
As an example of concrete poems, fully realized, we ca
by Augusto de Campos and "baum kind hund haus" of t
Eugen Gomringer. This poet, based in Ulm, parting
common with the Brazilian concrete group - or at least the
Paulo-arrived at similar results, which he called "const
Coup de Dts). He is now inclined to adopt the generic des
poetry," better suited to designate an international move
Campos's "Tension" demonstrates, once again, that concr
no way relinquish the sonorous dimension of the word. As i
in color, published in Noigandres 2 (Feb. 1955), accomp
Webern's "Klangfarbenmelodie," were not enough proo
poems, adapted to voice were executed in the Teatro
Paulo in November of 1955 by the "Ars Nova" musical
group is preparing another recital of concrete poetry w
In concrete poetry, as the above mentioned poems ind
is no longer the mere illustration of a particular and rea
the Futurists-poets, painters, and sculptors-and w
himself. The problem is now that of the dynamic non-figu
itself, movement produced by and producing grapho-ph
relations informed by meaning and conferring on
separates and unites them a qualitative value, a relationa
force, which is rhythm.

baum
baum kind
kind
kind hund
hund
hund haus
haus
haus baum
baum kind hund haus

(tree
tree boy
boy
boy dog
dog
dog house

5. Presented on March 6, 1957 in the Teatro Brasileiro de Comrdia, with verbalized scores
by Willys de Castro and directed by Diogo Pacheco.

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 A Brief Structural-Historical Guideline 193

house
house tree
tree boy dog house) UMT]

REFERENCES

Arboin, Gabriel [Apollinaire], 1914. "Devant l'ideogramme d'Apollinaire," Le

Paris (July-August).
Pound, Ezra, 1960. ABC of Reading (New York: New Directions).

Ilos cle la
pie f oil

[.il~iI?L L ~ ?

man -li

turris cle tail yII .

[:?11 "

our?I

preys-can
tower f tali

.I LEN man;
t .rl [ma
?n luceda

cle feb I- L]
teI em e-

!aof
nba er
murallmor

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194 DECIO PIGNATARI

o vo egg

no ve Io yarn ball
novo no velho new rolled on old

o filho em folhos son stuck to fold

na jaula dos joelhos in cage of knees

infante em fonte infant in fount

feto feito fetus perfected

dentro do entered to

centro center

nu
nude

des do nada naked nothing

ate o hum knot loosed to hu

ano mero n u
man born one to one

mero do zero mere number from zero

crude child accrued
crua crianga incru
heartwood of live
stada no cerne da
carne viva en flesh finally no
fim nada thing

point
ponto
hidden internal
onde se esconde
in inner core
lenda ainda antes
interabdominal
e ntreventres
chest pressed to chest
quando queimando
os seios s"o breasts burning
in febrile
peitos nos
dedos
fingers

noc
no

turna noite
turnal night
dusk into darkness
em t6rno em treva
dim tour no contour
turva sem contorno
dark slip knot death
morte negro no cego
sleep of the bat
sono do morcego nu
black in its sign
ma sombra que o pren
turning to
dia preta letra que
sun
se torna
sol

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 A Brief Structural-Historical Guideline 195

comrn can
som tem

con ten tam

tem sao bem

tom sem
bern som

sound tone
tone sing

con ten sing

tain sion tone

tum tone
bling gone

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