Jim Leftwich / Tom Hibbard
Visual Writing: An Exchange
From: tom hibbard
To: Jim Leftwich
Subject: received the 'prefaces'
jim
thanks for the 'prefaces' of john crouse// i plan to read over them unhastily// and then i'd like to write something about them if that is ok with you// at first glance they seem like a number of things i've been seeing lately// i don't mean that as a criticism// they offer a good opportunity to comment on this type of work// do you have any outside information that might be useful in writing about these// so, again, this work is appreciated// tom hibbard
From: Jim Leftwich
To: tom hibbard
Subject: Re: received the 'prefaces'
tom
interesting that you are seeing things similar to the prefaces. i've been a bit out of the loop for a while now, and am not seeing nearly as much as i was several years ago, so i'd be very interested in what else is out there that reminds you of this work. crouse has a notion of these pieces as both poems and prefaces. my sense of them is that they're complexly woven, syntactically intricate, polysemous, deceptive and quite possibly intentionally misleading. almost anti-exegeses embedded in intricately wrought anti-poems. taut and torqued, from the tension (attention) of a writing against itself. i think it would be wonderful if you were to write something about them. i wrote a draft of an essay on the first one, rough notes and thoughts. it can be an enjoyable text to work with.
jim
From: tom hibbard
To: jim leftwich
Attach: textual wall ii.jpg
Subject: verbal walls
jim
your brief comment about 'prefaces' gives me confidence in some of the things i'd wanted to say// 'anti-poems' is interesting term in the sense that no attempt is being made to say anything// the other work i mentioned as being similar is partly some artwork with the title 'wall'// in this sort of visual poetry the power of words is piled up to protect the author (and possibly things he cares about) from the audience rather than communicate with it, though this is a type of communication--of the need to protect// the natural irregularity of word use is replaced by an artifice of masonry// crouse is a little less deceptive than some others because the words he selects point to his intent to some degree// attached is something i just got in the mail last week from luc fierens in belgium
tom hibbard
From: Jim Leftwich
To: tom hibbard
Subject: Re: verbal walls
tom
some notes and
thoughts [are attached] on one of [crouse
's] prefaces.
i'll think a bit about your comments, and respond directly later.
for now, this seems to me significantly incorrect: " no attempt
is being made to say anything".
jim
From: Jim Leftwich
To: tom hibbard
Subject: Re: verbal walls
tom
"in this sort of visual poetry the power of words is piled up to protect the author (and possibly things he cares about) from the audience rather than communicate with it, though this is a type of communication--of the need to protect// the natural irregularity of word use is replaced by an artifice of masonry// crouse is a little less deceptive than some others because the words he selects point to his intent to some degree"
it seems unlikely to me that very many authors are actively writing in styles and forms intended to protect themselves and their concerns from their audiences. and, frankly, if this is the case, i'm not interested in the least. i recommend that these writers take further precautions to ensure their writings will suffer no encounter with an audience. two strategies come to mind: (1) don't send any work out., and (2) to be absolutely safe, don't write anything.
my take on the fierens piece would be that he is playing on the notion of the "prison-house of language", and is involved in a process of activating the reader towards a crumbling of its walls. other work from fierens is explicitly activist in social and political spheres, and it seems to me his concerns in those areas might easily carry over to his work with language itself
opaque and/or so-called "unreadable" texts serve an array of purposes. they may assist the reader in recognizing and acknowledging his or her complicity in the construction of meaning, thus destabilizing the conventional passivity or receptivity of reading. they might foreground the visuality or materiality of the text, as a way of contesting the distinction between "reading" and "looking", or in the case of an entirely opaque or genuinely unreadable text it may be that we are presented with a work of visual art composed of words and/or letters, and not strictly speaking with any kind of text at all.
as for the writer's
intentions in constructing such a text, one possibility is that he
or she is involved in a meticulous process of dismantling and reassembling
words, working not with the word or with the syllable as the primary
unit of composition, but rather with the letter
texts such as crouse 's prefaces,
which are not specifically letteral in their construction, rely on
the displacement of grammatical norms and expectations, along with
an explicitly aberrant syntactical sequencing, as their organizational
principle. with many texts, some of which might at first glance be
dismissed as simply opaque or unreadable, one or several of these
strategies may be discernible in the structural elements of the writing
on the page or screen.
by anti-poem i intended to suggest an oppositional stance towards much of the traditional artifice found in conventional poetry . this is not to suggest that crouse's work, as an example, is lacking in poetical artifice. quite the opposite, in fact, it foregrounds poetical artifice and in so doing insists upon the reader's attentiveness to that artifice, as opposed to the traditional notion of making all the stitching and unstitching seem a moment's though (to paraphrase Yeats) this in no way implies that 'no attempt is being made to say anything"
jim
 |
From: Jim Leftwich
To: tom hibbard
Subject: Re: verbal walls
i just printed the "textual wall' and see it isn't by fierens. i don't know carlo belloli's work. still, i read the rift at the center of this page as an indication that the wall is destabilized, and crumbling. it seems unlikely that this is intended as a barrier between writer and reader .
jIm
From: tom hibbard
To: jim leftwich
Subject: crouse's pre-face
jim
let me say at the outset that i want these messages to be an aesthetic exchange// i've printed out all our recent messages// and they read well// your comments have opened my eyes// they are extensive, and i will be re-reading them// they would be good to publish simply by themselves// i hope you don't mind if i present my response to them// this response tonight is extemporaneous and somewhat before beddie-bye
perhaps i might begin by defending john crouse to some degree// to 'protect oneself from the audience' as i have described isn't really so reprehensible or unusual// painters have been doing this for quite a while// i know of art exhibits of blank canvases that i think are depersonalizations to quantum degrees// but the whole of 'abstract art' reflects this concern for avoiding 'greedy' objectifying eyes with an art of shifting, unfamiliar and simplified ways of expressing basically the same content as the more vulnerable and recognizable 'naturalism'// even so-called textual poets do this to some degree
of course, as you say, abstract art is much more than that// i have to agree--and want to agree--with much of what you say about 'visual poetry'// for example, your mention of the 'prison house ot language' which i think is key to the inception of the terms 'expressive' and 'expressionism'// you are of course correct that crouse's prefaces do 'say something'// i would like to hear more of your thoughts on what they say because this is where you have taught me// i assure you that i like collage and visual poetry// they are liberating// i agree entirely with your idea that they 'foreground the visuality and materiality of the text'
on the other hand, that is precisely my point// i believe that crouse 's works are 'prefaces' because they pre-face and pre-state the liquidity of intelligent mature peace// no matter what visual writers say about their works i am entitled to my own overall feelings about it// i feel that in 'foregrounding the...materiality [my italics]of the texts' they are putting up an edifice// i find the geometrical shapes and repetitive words to be, as i say, more masonry than any sort of direct cognitive statement// another term for this sort of writing is 'concrete poetry', 'concrete' reinforcing the sense of edifice, de-personalization and so on// you yourself use the terms 'opaque' and 'unreadable'// the word 'explicit' used in relation to visual poetry seems to me metaphorical//
i think our differences stem from marshall mcluhan and the idea that the printed word is 'linear'// in relation to film, for example, this term i think has some validity// but who would want to report the events of a town meeting in visual images// to call the printed word linear is off track// 'specificity' and 'explicitness' are light years from 'linear'// to some degree 'visual poetry' tramples on this and could even be considered a corruption because it avoids specificity; it avoids the issues// the printed word is more complex than the mirrors of the hubble telescope// as a medium, it is more unexplored than the edges of the universe// i think a much better term than 'linear' to begin a discussion of the medium of printed sentences is 'non-visual'
if's getting late// i've got to wrap up// i'm looking at your wonderful pages here// i truly and frankly say i would like to read more// you mention crouse 's visual poems lack poetical artifice// to me poetry is the lack of artifice// it is complete freedom of thought// maybe belloli's wall is crumbling// it most certainly is, as we have seen// but why is it// shouldn't we as honestly and baldly as possible attempt to give reasons// human responsibility extends beyond what we can see//
tom hibbard
From: Jim Leftwich
To: tom hibbard
Subject: Re: crouse's pre-face
tom
"no matter what visual writers say about their works i am entitled to my own overall feelings about it" -absolutely, and thank you for expressing them here. reading your comments i get the impresssion that we actually don't differ greatly in our approach to these matters. your mention of the white canvases helped clarify your earlier comments, and i do recognize this as both a tradition and a currently valid stand point. many visual artists in the 60s and 70s took this kind of adversarial approach to their most intimate audiences of gallery owners, curators, and critics. i had missed something in what you were saying in your earlier post.
"shouldn't we as honestly and baldly as possible attempt to give reasons" - once again, absolutely. and, joining this to the statement quote above, we should expect (affirm and applaud) a very diverse array of reasons to be given.
"human responsibility extends beyond what we can see" -yes.
i put a copy of xtant two in the mail to you today. it's been several years since i've been as excited about something i've edited as i am with this issue (juxta 5, in 97, to be exact). it will give you a pretty good idea of what i'm thinking these days, and of what i care about in poetry and related matters. i have an essay in it as well, which may pertain to this email exchange we're having.
a valuable exchange for me.
it's good to be in touch. i have other writings i would like to send you, but for now xtant two will suffice. it's nearly 200 pages.
jim
From: tom hibbard
To: jim leftwich
Subject: paved in venice
jim
your last message was good// i'm looking forward to reading your essay in 'extant'// i've printed out our exchange so far// that sentence about '...entitled to my own opinion' came out a little differently than i intended// what i meant was that an artwork can say it is about something, but its superficial qualities have a deciding effect// a repeated word arranged regularly in lines in a square on a page, to me, looks like bricks// the description 'linear' might be apt for such use of words// but for example the sentence 'a few years ago, i was standing on a dock in venice'// 'years', the pronoun 'i', 'standing', 'venice'--these words and the others have such a richness of associations and functions that the visual quality of the sentence seems to me to last only for an instant before it becomes a mysterious cloud of mental impressions, associations, conclusions and even motivations// as i drove around yesterday, i asked myself what is my point, what does what i am saying boil down to// it was this--we seem to be forgetting that the written word has the capacity to say things in a non-visual way
again, i don't dislike visual poetry, collage// in fact, one thing lettrism and visual poetry seem to do is convey this very fact// they convey what the message of the medium of the written or printed word is---thought, communication, law, history, the concept of civilization itself
tom hibbard
From: Jim Leftwich
To: tom hibbard
Subject: Re: paved in venice
tom
"we seem to be forgetting that the written word has the capacity to say things in a non-visual way" -or maybe just leaving this out, taking it for granted, as if to say this is in no danger of going unnoticed, and concentrating instead on one of the more neglected qualites of the written word. but you're right, it needs to be acknowledged, and i think foregrounding the visuality of a text only serves to increase the range of experiential possibilities arrayed among our "mental impressions, associations, conclusions and even motivations". what we want, i think, is a gestalt, albeit condensed, wherein a wide range of the experiential spectrum is offered as if in a moment. in normative reading strategies a hierarchy is imposed upon the qualities of the written word - denotation, then sound, then visuality. the visuality of the written word is for the most part all but ignored. some visual poetry inverts this hierarchy (visuality, sound, denotation), and some scrambles it in one way or another (visuality, denotation, sound, with sound all but ignored; or, sound, visuality, denotation). different visual poets have different tendencies here, which accounts tor a lot of the diversity of visual poems. the trick, i think, is to foreground either visuality or sound, and yet impose no set hierarchy of these qualities of the written word, but rather to destabilize the relations among them, generating something analogous to a kinetic sculpture, or to a tripartite rabbit/duck type (optical/aural/cognitive?) illusion. if the reader isn't instructed as to how to proceed, then the practicality of a predetermined reading strategy is undermined, and the shifting and shuffling of these qualities of the written word become the experiential negotiation of the text at hand, an actual reading as opposed to the enactment of a habitual reading strategy.
for now i've only glanced at your mcluhan essay, but i will read it in the next day or two and respond.
jim
From: tom hibbard
To: jim leftwich
Subject: transmitted
jim
enjoyed your message// a couple of notes -- the artwork i sent is from a forty or so page publication by luc fierens in belgium// the artwork itself is by an italian artist, carlo belloli//
i don't know the title of that artwork// the ones that are titled 'wall' i saw in exhibits in an art center and a museum// so, just being a bit careful about my facts
basinski combines visual and textual poetry
i want to send you two other artworks from the fierens 'exhibition' publication// to me, these show that in europe the subject of our exchange is already in full bloom//
tom hibbard
From: Jim Leftwich
To: tom hibbard
Subject: Re: transmitted
tom
i realize now that i have this booklet. a nice one. the earlier piece didn't register.
it's interesting to see what happens if we try to read these pieces. what do we have in front of us? what is being made available to a reading? gappmayr's piece is minimalist, but he does offer a few entrances. "weiss" is german for "white", so denotatively that's all we have to work with. the
english is a shade or two darker than the german. probably just a visual distinction corresponding to the difference in languages. as printed, the text is printed in black ink on white paper. in such a context, it's hard to imagine the text as non-referential. there's nothing there but the text and it's white ground. what can it be telling us? something about the fundamental duplicity of language, in that what is saying "white" isn't? something about language and change? in order to say the page is white, we must say so in black? maybe we're getting somewhere. what about translation? gappmayr's german is translated into english. the experience of white, as in white paper, is "translated" into the thought of white, into language. eventually the text itself, insistently repetitive, becomes a kind of "white noise", no signal at all, only a sort of letteral ambience, a repetitive array of letteral shapes shaped into a rectangle inside the rectangular frame of the page. we're not given the experience of white, unmediated by language, but we are given a language designed to cancel itself out. the intimation is that this experience, the experience of this page, might finally be encountered unmediated by language. as usual in these attempts, it doesn't quite work. but, we are give a textual space in which to contemplate these problems and possibilities. it might be taken as a fundamental first step towards what cage called the "quieting of the mind", towards a kind of zen emptiness.
others who don't tend in these directions can surely arrive at other readings. this doesn't seem to me like a wall constructed between author and reader. it seems much more like a clearing made in language by the author for himself and for us.
the other piece seems just as rich, and possibly more direct. "not the head!" the body, yes". from there, mostly commentary, by the piece on itself. the one emphatic negative for the head is contrasted with the 143 affirmatives surrounding the body (that's counting both the visible and the obstructed instances of "oui"). the solid, dark area of the body contrasts with the light, ethereal area of the sky surrounding the head. that's a start, and seems straightforward enough. but what's going on with this "head"? it's more a globe, floating in this sky, sun, moon, earth, or some generic heavenly body. and it's not actually floating, it's held up by two small hands emerging from the shirt. so not what? not launching the head into space? i have no idea. it brings to mind one of the rituals of the church of the sub-genius, what they called "launching the head of arnold palmer". they were a fairly silly bunch of anarchist art pranksters, dada meets punk, and making clear sense wasn't at the top of their priority list, but i don't think the work at hand has anything to do with bob dobbs and his absurd antichurch. but a part of how one judges one's experience of an artwork is by the associations it evokes and provokes, notwithstanding the obvious and correct complaint that this is not fair to the artist and in fact detracts from one's experience of the work. the casual posture of the torso, coupled with this incongruous object and/or event in place of a head, reminds me of the nonchalantly surreal figures in max ernst's collage books. suggestive of figures in a dream, something almost palpably sensible about them, but the sense of it finally just slightly out of reach.
jim
From: Jim Leftwich
To: tom hibbard
Subject: Re: transmitted
tom
the thing about mixed media is that it does what it's designed to do. for example, some of it moves. it looks like it's made to move, it seems designed to move, in fact it does move. we come to it expecting it to do what it does. and we are not surprised or disappointed.
it's different with text on a page. it's not going to move. it doesn't look like it's going to move, it doesn't seem designed to move, and it doesn't move.
if anything moves, it's in the mind, or in the brain, different parts of the brain, perhaps, being activated, this part now to register the visuality, another part to listen to it's sounds, yet another to analyze or contemplate its meanings. or, one part now for looking, another then for reading.
if the normative balance and harmony of all this (transparency of visuality, relative muteness of sonance) is disrupted or destabilized, the reader may be surprised, even disappointed, suffering a dys-appointment with that which was expected in the encounter.
this is a big part of the experience, this instability and sense of dysappointment. defamiliarize the territory of language and the mind will think new maps.
basinski
certainly combines visual and textual poetry, and says in his essays
that sound is his primary concern, specifically improvised sound.
basinski is as complex as it gets.
i admire your writing on him. i've thought i should write about his
work for some time now, but haven't done so. every time i decide to
do it, i find myself daunted by the project. you and jonathan
fernandez are the only two i know who have written at length about
his work. i hope both of you do more.
jim
From: tom hibbard
To: jim leftwich
Subject: the same
jim
the term 'linear' seems to express a disappointment in the printed medium// but to me it is a disappointment in the visual qualities of the medium// this is a flaw in the reader not the medium// i think it misses the point to criticize the medium of print for lacking exciting visual qualities if the medium is non-visual
the whole of the mcluhan phenomenon in the sixties might be put into this central idea--the new electronic media expand the viewers' sensibilities through the jarring multiplicity of the viewing experience// this is what you call 'dys-appointment'// it is true that the printed word does not do this// however the reason it doesn't do this is because it does precisely the opposite--it links together words in a way that conveys, remarkably, an understandable message, appearing, as you say, visually innocuous// the virtue of this is that it averts all sorts of obstacles associated with 'visual' and 'visible'
i was struck by your idea of having to 'express white in terms of black'// this is what i find so interesting in your approach// it seems to go toward the limits of human expression// a recent new york review article on noam chomsky describes the interesting idea of language use in terms of a numerical sum// i think the term used is 'computation', in the sense of an adding together, a total// i got the idea that all expression -- in our discussion, both visual and textual -- is an attempt to match something to something else, both internally and externally// this seems to be what i mean by 'specificity' and 'explicitness', though i don't think these can be achieved in a final or absolute form// 'computation' has the sense to me of an estimate, a shot in the dark// it seems to imply that language use is an inexact science// this would be the point at which both textual and visual writing intersect
tom hibbard
--March/April 2002
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