Jean-Francois Bory

I have 3 main Concrete Poetry compilations in my personal library that I've read various other bks w/ related material that have slightly different foci. I love them all. Sometimes, though, I think I might love this one the most - even though it's the smallest (I'm a size queen when it comes to bks). The other comps have mainly pieces designed for the PAGE. This Bory edited collection has photographs of pieces that are more sculptural & that adds a whole other dimension (nyuk, nyuk).

I'm usually interested in EXPANDED concepts that expand the notion of what something is so much that it goes beyond what previously might've been its basic definition. EXPANDED TECHNIQUE in musical instrument playing, EXPANDED CINEMA (Stan Vanderbeek's marvelous projection experiments come to mind), EXPANDED LANGUAGE PRESENTATION: this bk documents it well.

A transparent box w/ 3 transparent geometrical shapes inside, consonants on the outside of the box, vowels on the interior objects. One's perspective changes what words one sees (if any). Language becomes focused on one's position in relation to it. This perspective/position becomes a part of language, the reader has an expanded notion of how the mind works in relation to language. Then perspective/position can be thought of as part of language w/o even having letters or words necessarily visible anymore. The expansion has taken us outside a narrower definition of language in wch letters or words are 'needed'. Or something like that.

Bicycle wheels arranged as a sculpture, a central pole w/ letters/words on it, the sculpture burns, perhaps some of the letters/words are transformed, the process of fire is tied concretely into the words, these concrete connections are what Concrete Poetry is all about - intensifying the meanings of the words by connecting them to their physical substance. Adamitic language regained, magikal language regained or gained for the 1st time. Making the relationships between signs & what they signify no longer arbitrary.… (mehr)