Carmina Figurata 2024

My speculative poetry book Dragons & Rayguns contains two concrete poems that are carmina figurata (singular: carmen figuratum), which form a visual image on the page from poetic lines read straight across, jumping over white spaces. These are "Space Opera" and "The Raygun's Plea for Understanding." (Below, you can click on each poem to read it more clearly in a magnified image if you would like.) If you are having trouble reading the poem (this image is kind of small), you can click on it to see it larger and crisper. Also, here is the text of the poem, taken out of shape. A blunt lipstick-shaped tube of dull gray points up to gunmetal sky covered by drab clouds of acid ice scoring the ground with hard pellets of sulfur hail like fiery bullets of burning brimstone dredged from hell’s deep abyss. Flash Gordon taking off to Ming the Merciless’s planet to rescue Dale Arden from that fate worse than death. Night’s shroud is falling. The red-orange blast of his engines glows like morning, a little harbinger of hope in stormy darkness. The small ship soars, a desperate arrow. The second poem I wrote when I was putting together Dragons & Rayguns. It occurred to me that I didn't have enough "raygun" poems in the book, so . . . voila! Again, if you're having trouble reading, click on it for a magnified image, or else here's the poem text, outside of the raygun shape. PEW PEW PEW That’s how most folks think we rayguns sound. Or maybe blam kablooey rrip. Well, everyone, often there’s no sound ‘cause we are battling out in space. No air. No vibrations. Simple flashes of light, piercing flashes, pardon the pun. Energy beams even, rays, if you will. No flash at all, sometimes. I’m tired of the stereotype. We rayguns are sensitive. We don’t indiscriminately kill. We are careful, selective, canny. Some of us have not ever fired one shot. So relax! I learned how to write carmina figurata from the poet Jan D. Hodge, who is the absolute best concrete poet in the US, maybe in the world. He would type a page full of x's and then erase whatever was needed to draw the desired shape. Then he would substitute words for the x's, sometimes not from top to bottom, but inserting text that coincided with parts of the image. Brilliant. Here's one of Jan's carmina figurata, "Carousel II": Jan D. Hodge, "Carousel II" (2012) You can read a entire book full of Jan's carmina figurata in his collection, Taking Shape (2015). In this book, you'll find a poem that I was fortunate to publish in the North American Review, in the amazing shape of a harpsichord superimposed over a guillotine. Speaking of buying books, at the start of this post, I linked my book Dragons & Rayguns to Amazon. If you want to buy a book and would like me to sign your copy, buy it direct from Final Thursday Press here. And then also email the press that you want an inscription. Since we're looking at visual imagery, here's the cover of Dragons & Rayguns, designed by my son Marty Gotera, who is a graphic designer in Germany. When I asked him to do it, I specified that I would like it to have a comic-book vibe and feature a dragon as well as a raygun. I think he did an incredible job. What do you think? Cover of Dragons & Rayguns by Marty Gotera (2024) As always, I'd love to get some feedback or discuss anything with all y'all. Comment, okay? Thanks. Ingat.

Day 28 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2022

Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “[W]rite a concrete poem. Like acrostic poems, concrete poems are a favorite for grade-school writing assignments, so this may not be your first time at the concrete-poem rodeo. In brief, a concrete poem is one in which the lines are shaped in a way that mimics the topic of the poem.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “[W]rite a sight poem. We've already done smell, taste, sound, and touch; so we're tying the sensory poems up today.” Merging both prompts today, as usual. Not sight exactly but the organ of sight. This is a carmen figuratum, a specific type of concrete poetry more well known in the plural, carmina figurata. These are read straight across, skipping over the white space. Copacetic eyes show     your level    of    angst to       people       so do    not let    on you   are   not copacetic —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]             Image by cocoparisienne on Pixabay The contemporary master of the carmina figurata is Jan D. Hodge. Here is his poem "Carousel II: Legends." He collected many of these concrete poems in a collection titled Taking Shape (2015).             "Carousel II: Legends" by Jan D. Hodge Incidentally, I have written a couple of carmina figurata on Prince. They are both in The Ekphrastic Review: "Prince Rules" and "Prince's Guitar." I learned how to write these from Jan. Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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Poems at Inigo Online Magazine

Friends, we're kinda sneaking up on NaPoWriMo here . . . less than a week to go. This Saturday — five days from now — will be Day One! So I thought I'd up warm up the blog here with some poetry news. It's been a while since I've been here. A sin, I know. I do hope you'll come back every day during April for poems, poems, poems! During this month of March, I've been very lucky to have four poems appear in a new venue, Inigo Online Magazine, at inigoonline.com. On the mag's launch day, two of my carmina figurata appeared, memorializing Prince, and today Inigo Online published two of my poems on Jimi Hendrix. It's a rock & roll month! The four poems are . . . "Prince Rules" (1 March 2016) "Prince's Guitar" (1 March 2016) "Letter to Hendrix in Paradise" (27 March 2016) " 'Are You Experienced?' " (27 March 2016) Thanks to editor Melanie Wolfe and her staff at Inigo Online Magazine! Won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. To comment, look for a red line below that starts Posted by, then click once on the word comments in that line. If you don’t find the word “comments” in that line, then look for a blue link below that says Post a comment and click it once. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

Day Nine ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2015

Day Nine. Today we're 3/10 of the way through National Poetry Month. Don't need to crank up the calculator in my phone to tell you that's 30%. Still lots of poetry a-comin', folks . . . 70%. I hope you're continuing to write. Maureen Thorson's NaPoWriMo prompt: "I challenge you to write a visual poem. If that’s not specific enough, perhaps you can try your hand at a calligram? That’s a poem or other text in which the words are arranged into a specific shape or image. You might find inspiration in the famous calligrams written by Guillaume Apollinaire." Robert Lee Brewer's PAD suggestion: "For today’s prompt, write a work poem. For some folks, writing is work (great, huh?). For others, work is teaching, engineering, or delivering pizzas. Still others, dream of having work to help them pay the bills or go to all ages shows. Some don’t want work, don’t need work, and are glad to be free of the rat race. There are people who work out, work on problems, and well, I’ll let you work out how to handle your poem today." I'm going to start off showing Alan's poem today because he got his done before mine. Actually, he always gets his poem done first but today I'd like to give him pride of place in the blog. Alan gives us an intro: "Today, I have attempted to combine Maureen Thorson's prompt with Robert Lee Brewer's prompt. Today, Thorson has asked for a 'visual' poem, and Brewer has asked for a 'work' poem. Since my work involves so much writing, I wrote about my tool of choice and made a visual allusion to Edward Bulwer-Lytton. I'm just lucky that the first word has that shape." Mightier A pen can pry some type of a love or a fear or a hate or a calm from blank white paper marked printed out & some- times read aloud —Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Bravo, Alan! What he has created today is a carmen figuratum, a specific type of visual poem in which the words and letters are not manipulated so their paths curve to draw an image, as in many of Appolinaire's calligrams. The characters are positioned and read straight across; it's their positions that draw the picture. Very smart to begin with the letter A in order to make the point of the sword. After Alan's example, I made one too. I'm also merging prompts: a carmen figuratum on the theme of work. Like Alan's poem above, it's a riddle poem of sorts. I'm pretty excited . . . this is my first foray into the genre of carmina figurata. (That's the plural term; these two poems together are carmina figurata.) The Grass Is Greener work work work to me is A# Db Cm E9 G6 or F#maj7 oh I wish I could be some other thing wood yes but large and important maybe a windmill or a skyscraper or a ship sigh Bm7 yawn —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] I'm particularly proud that I figured out how to make the neck of the guitar. It required coming up with two-letter words that could be said in sequence semantically and syntactically. So fun. The unparallelled master of contemporary carmina figurata is Jan D. Hodge. It's an interesting coincidence that just yesterday I wrote a blurb for Jan's forthcoming book of carminata figurata, titled Taking Shape. His word-pictures are very complicated and intriguing: a harpsichord poised in front of a guillotine; a still life with a quill pen and ink bottle next to a T-square and drafting triangle; a leprechaun; a seahorse; the Chinese ideogram for spring with a morel mushroom embedded in it. Plus many of Jan's carmina figurata are written in meter; in fact, one of them employs medieval alliterative verse! Here are couple of sample carmina figurata by Hodge: Cupid and a flying witch, published in the online magazine Frostwriting.com. To read the poems, click on either image (or better yet, click on both). Remember to read straight across, jumping over any white spaces necessitated by the picture. I guarantee you'll be amazed, friends. "Veteran's Day" by Jan D. Hodge             "Sabbat" by Jan D. Hodge Friends, won't you comment, please? Love to know what you're thinking. To comment, look for a red line below that starts Posted by, then click once on the word comments in that line. If you don't find the word "comments" in that line, then look for a blue link below that says Post a comment and click it once. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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