"It is a new relation to syntax (normal syntax equal straight line which, continued not nearly so far as infinity, gets lost in social wastes . . .) but it also has a new relation to sound - abstract in a much more real way than 'sound' poetry, since it is heard by the mind and CANNOT be spoken. Of course one could add a third type of concrete which is not heard at all. I wonder if Augusto [de Campos]'s idea that the content of the poem is its own structure could not be reworded to mean that the poem is not about the beauty of this or that but simply, beauty - the content is a fineness of relations, which IS meaning . . ."
Ian Hamilton Finlay on concrete poetry, in a letter to Edwin Morgan, from Ian Hamilton Finlay: Selections (University of California Press, 2012)
No comments:
Post a Comment