Concrete Poetry, Technology and Words

Technology is an extension of the written word. Words become pictures. Pictures become words. Artists then create work through an extension of themselves. Technology is as much a tool as words themselves are.

Push the envelope of what words are "supposed" to be. There is no single message, no single image that conveys the mire in your head. But an image might give a piece of the picture and a word another. Stack them on top of each other; run them through your mind; add some words and more images. Is the picture more in focus? Can you see it?

Poetry is not a "beautified discourse." How can words alone, words that tear and bite and stack themselves up in codified piles of nonsense, possibly tackle beauty? Words can become a part of something more. Arrange your l e t t er s on a page a little different and see what happens. Are there messages you haven't seen? Are the words you're reading e v e n w h a t y o u t h i n k t h e y a r e ? Words are a tool. Can you see it?

Poems "formulate the appearance of reality" but are not reality. Typing my own name does not create a new me. How can I expect you to see who I am through two simple words. Michael Ray. It is too simple then. We need more to see. Structure can bind or can liberate. Technology can illuminate or distill the reality. All things are tools, for good or for bad. Learn to use them.

No one can make us stay within the verbal limits of a word. Within Mary is an army. Within Michael, He [can] claim...something more. Get on the road. Can you see it?

Edward is a drawer or a reward and is contained inside him. Pull words apart; play with them. Deconstruct and find the pieces. Put them back together in different orders. This is a game. Structure vs. Anarchy writing--which is better, more true? What game we are playing makes for different answers.

The pen is an extension of the hand is the extension of the mind is the extension of the heart and it beats. The television, the name called into the night, the scrawl of a child, blocks stacked on top of one another--all can take a single word and make it mean something more. And we should allow ourselves the liberty to do it. Push words off buildings. Stack them on top of one another. Strip off the extraneous. Let words live. See it.