Shaped Poetry
Glenn Todd
1981Publisher: The Arion Press
San FranciscoBlack, hand-printed, cloth portfolio with 2 parts.
1) Hand typeset volume with Stéphane Marllarmé's "A Throw of the Dice will Never Abolish Chance" —1897, including a history of poetry through the 20th century and a description of enclosed hand typeset historical prints.
2) 30 hand typeset prints, each on unique paper, color, etc. in relation to the poem.Unknown, "Simias Egg" — Greece, 300 BC
Theocritus, "Pan Pipes" — Greece, 250 BC
Porfyrius Optatianus, "Altar" — Byzantium, 325 AD
Eustorg de Beaulieu, "Acrostic" — France, 1537
George Herbert, "Altar" — England, 1633
George Herbert, "Easter Wings" — England, 1633
Robert Angot, "Lute" — France, 1634
Robert Herrick, "The Cross" — England, 1647
Justus George Schottel, "Chalice" — Germany, 1633
Charles François Panard, "Bottle" — France, 1750
Lewis Carroll, "The Mouse's Tale" — England, 1865
Stéphane Mallarmé, "A Throw of the Dice" — France, 1897
Christian Morgenstern, "Fish's Nightsong" — Germany, 1903
F.T. Marinetti, "Balloon" — Italy, 1914
Guillaume Apollinaire, "Necktie"— France, 1914
Guillaume Apollinaire, "It is Raining" — France, 1918
André Breton, "Bohemian Crystal Vase" — France, 1920*
Gertrude Stein, "Rose is a Rose" — USA, 1920
Man Ray, "Sound Poem" — USA, 1924
e.e. cummings, "Grasshopper" — USA, 1935
Dylan Thomas, "Vision & Prayer" — Wales, 1946*
Eugen Gomringer, "Silence" — Switzerland, 1954
Dieter Roth, "Four to the Fourth Power" — Germany, 1957*
May Swenson, "The Totem" — USA, 1958*
Philip Lamantia, "Voice" — USA, 1959*
Augusto de Campos, "Caracol" — Brazil, 1960
Ian Hamilton Finlay, "Redboat" — Scotland, 1963*
Andrei Voznesensky, "Seagull" — USSR, c.1970*
John Hollander, "Swan and Shadow" — USA, 1970*
Andrew Hoyem, "Rebus" — USA, 1981.** missing from the collection
Simias
"Egg"
Greece, 300 BC12" x 16"
Publisher: The Arion Press; Glenn Todd, ed.
San FranciscoThe "Egg" is intended to read first line, first; last line, second; second line, third; etc., alternating from top to bottom, working toward the center. This poem is believed to have been originally inscribed into an oval shaped stone. The poem is set in 12-point Antigone of Modern Greek; the Roman type is Lutetia. Handmade paper by Glenn Wark of Leaf Papers was produced specifically for this project with a deckle edge on all four sides, a leaf watermark in the lower right and a color connotation of the Nightingale's olive egg.
Theocritus
"Pan Pipes"
Greece, 250 BC12" x 16"
Publisher: The Arion Press; Glenn Todd, ed.
San Francisco, 1981Typeface label bold, printed on Charter Oak, handmade by Barchan Green at Hayle Mill in England.
Porfyrius Optatianus
"Altar"
325, Byzantium12" x 16"
Publisher: The Arion Press; Glenn Todd, ed.
San Francisco; 1981This 4th century poet wrote both pagan and Christian shaped poetry, which was unusual for the Romans and he caught the attention of Constantine. The Roman font centaur is from the famous Trojan column in Rome and is printed on laid cream paper called Michelangelo, made by the oldest mill in Europe: Fabriano in Italy.
Eustorg de Beaulieu
"Acrostic"
1537, France12" x 16"
Publisher: The Arion Press; Glenn Todd, ed.
San Francisco, 1981Acrostics are lines or verses where particular letters when read in a nontraditional order spell out a word or phrase. This technique, along with rubrification (coloring) of text was used throughout the Middle Ages to underscore mystical expressions within a text and considered devotional by the authors. The acrostic dependence on the visual form makes these mostly Latin poems untranslatable. This unusual French example consists of the single phrase, "Gloire à Dieu seul" (Glory to God alone). The typeface Inkunabula was popular at the time this poem was written. A gold leaf stamp is printed on English handmade paper by Barcham Green.
George Herbert
"Altar"
1633, England12" x 16"
Publisher: The Arion Press; Glenn Todd, ed.
San Francisco, 1981Glenn Todd writes in the introduction: "The voice of the poem is not the Altar's but the poet's. The Altar is broken and constructed from the pieces of the heart held together by tears." The type was originally hand-cut by Janson in the 17th century, now owned by the Stempel Foundry in Frankfurt. Therefore, subtle differences can be noticed with smaller sizes being proportionally bolder to maintain consistent color and readability when used with the larger display sizes. The vellum parchment paper is handmade linen and rag paper designed to imitate parchment (sheepskin) made by a now defunct paper mill: A. Millbourn & Co. in Devon, England.
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George Herbert
"Easter Wings"
1633, England12" x 16"
Publisher: The Arion Press; Glenn Todd, ed.
San Francisco; 1981This poem is the quintessential pattern poem of the 17th century. Simias's "Wings of Eros," here as Todd points out: "The shape is borrowed from Simias' Wings of Eros, here become Christian and angelic, and, like Simias's poem, has not one set of wings, but two. The lines of the poem are printed vertically, so that the outlines of the wings are immediately apparent." The modified 'f' form (with the filed off crossbar) represents the obsolete tall 'S' form (still used in German) which resembles the 'f'. This early tall 'S' was used in George Herbert's original typeset poem. Bulmar Italics and Eric Gill's Canterbury capitals with 6 hand-tinted colors were printed on custom paper in England.
Robert Angot
"Lute"
1634, France12" x 16"
Publisher: The Arion Press; Glenn Todd, ed.
San Francisco, 1981In 1634, Robert Angot published a collection of his poetry which included five pattern poems of twin bottles, eggs, a laurel bough, a cross, and a lute referring to Minerva's lute. The round shape of the baseline type significantly disturbed the conventions of the 17th century. Typesetters may have originally created plaster-of-Paris wedges to set the type; the Arion Press created photo engravings printed in red-brown ink on Japanese wood veneer laminated to a paper backing.
"The Cross"
Robert Herrick
1647, England12" x 16"
Publisher: The Arion Press; Glenn Todd, ed.
San Francisco, 1981Todd describes Herrick as "famed for the gusto of his pastoral poetry, his mastery of classical form and diction," as well as bawdy epigrams. The Poliphilus font expresses the character and technical blundering of 17th century printers by using various oddities to add curiosity to reflect the quaint awkwardness of the original. This was printed an obsolete parchment paper made in the 1960s.
"Chalice"
Justus Georg Schottel
1663, Germany12" x 16"
Printed by The Arion Press; Glenn Todd, ed.
San Francisco, 1981The popularity of German pattern poetry in the 17th century led to a wide variety of designs, ornaments, of ten printed as broadsheets widely distributed for ceremonies. The original was printed in Fraktur while this version uses the modern Goudy with hand tinted watercolor on an obsolete British pure-rag, laid paper possibly predating World War II.
Charles Francois Panard
"Bottle"
1750, France12" x 16"
Publisher: The Arion Press; Glenn Todd, ed.
San Francisco, 1981Panard was a French composer of Vaudeville jingles who wrote poems in both bottle and goblet shapes. The 1920s German typeface, thannhaueser, was printed in New York on mauve-tinted paper commissioned for this project.
Lewis Carroll
"The Mouse's Tale"
1865, England12" x 16"
Publisher: The Arion Press; Glenn Todd, ed.
San Francisco, 1981In "Alice in Wonderland," Lewis Carroll wrote perhaps the most well-recognized pattern poem in pre-20th century literature. He received the idea of a shaped poem from a friend who had a dream about a fairy poem made of very long tapered lines that contained 2 syllables. In Carroll's poem the letters diminish in point size as the mouse's "tail" tells its "tale." Garamond is used ranging from 6 point to 48 points on paper commissioned by Arion Press from the Twinrocker Mill of Brookstone, Indiana.
Stéphane Mallarmé
"Un Coup de Dés (A Throw of the Dice)"
1897, France10 1/2" x 14 1/2"; 12" x 16" (unfolded)
Publisher: The Arion Press; Glenn Todd, ed.
San Francisco, 198110 double-spread pages bound in a circular accordion with 1 translation page. Mallarmé was the acknowledged leader of the late 19th century Symbolist movement along with Gide, Claudel, and Valéry. He saw the book as an object with magical properties and letters themselves as "hieroglyphic signs with hermetic messages to be decoded from their shapes." His attention to design was a ritualistic performance through which he sought "to paint not the thing but the effect it produces." The Arion Press bound this book as a circular accordion fold because the poem itself begins and ends with the same text. For this reason the entire text of "UN Coup de Dés" is printed in its entirety with the integrity of Mallarme's original form. Bodoni is printed on Apta from Richard Debar, the oldest paper mill in France.
Christian Morgenstern
"Fish's Night Song"
1903, Germany12" x 16"
Publisher: The Arion Press; Glenn Todd, ed.
San Francisco, 1981The concrete poets saw the work of this German poet as a forerunner to their own work. This may be the first attempt to write a poem without words at all. The poem is composed of a series of symbols (scansion marks for long and short syllables), which evoke the shapes and scales of a fish, or perhaps the silent underwater music fish might make opening and closing their mouths. Lower case "i" and parentheses of 20th Century bold were printed on custom paper for a folio edition of Moby Dick, which had the appropriate watery look.
FT Marinetti
"Balloon"
1914, Italy12" x 16"
Publisher: The Arion Press; Glenn Todd, ed.
San Francisco, 1981Filippo Tommaso Marinetti founded Futurism and prior to that was a symbolist who was inspired by Appolinaire, the founder of Symbolist poetry. Marinetti's staged performances and his 1909 Futurist Manifesto embraced revolutions shocked 19th Century values by completely breaking from those values. His work incited riots.
Guillaume Apollinaire
"Necktie"
1914, France12" x 16"
Publisher: The Arion Press; Glenn Todd, ed.
San Francisco, 1981Apollinaire was influenced by Futurism, George Bracque, Pablo Picasso and Gertrude Stein. He wanted his poetry to be like paintings and was influenced by Stein's sense of rhythm and repetition.
F.T. Marinetti
"It is Raining"
1918, France12" x 16"
Printed by The Arion Press; Glenn Todd, ed.
San Francisco, 1981
Gertrude Stein
"Rose is a Rose"
1914, USA12" x 16"
Publisher: The Arion Press, Glenn Todd, ed.
San Francisco; 1981Stein suggested her famous phrase be printed in a circular pattern in order to reflect a garland.
Man Ray
"Sound Poem"
1924, USA12" x 16"
Publisher: The Arion Press, Glenn Todd, ed.
San Francisco; 1981
e e cummings
"grasshopper"
1935, USA12" x 16"
Publisher: The Arion Press, Glenn Todd, ed.
San Francisco; 1981This visual poem is meant to convey a grasshopper hopping and the "sense of wonder the poet feels watching such a creature move."
Eugen Gomringer
"Silence"
1954, Switzerland12" x 16"
Publisher: The Arion Press, Glenn Todd, ed.
San Francisco; 1981In 1953 Gomringer published Constellations, a book of poems which comprised only one or two words.
Augusto de Campos
"Caracol"
1960, Brazil12" x 16"
Publisher: The Arion Press, Glenn Todd, ed.
San Francisco; 1981de Campos and his Brazilian poet colleagues founded a magazine "Noigandres" to describe their poetry. By 1955, founders of the Noigandres and poets such as Gomringer met in Europe and called their work "concrete." This chance meeting led to the foundation of concrete poetry today.