The Soul selects her own society,
then Shuts the door.
e. dickinson

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Pinball PoeMechanics

Check out this video: pinball punctuation



Add to My Profile | More Videos

Using the form of a pinball machine.

from Paragraphs on Conceptual Writing" Kenny To;the G says:
"When an author uses a multiple modular form she usually chooses a simple and readily available form. The form itself is of very little importance; it becomes the grammar for the total work. In fact, it is best that the basic unit be deliberately uninteresting so that it may more easily become an intrinsic part of the entire work. Using complex basic forms only disrupts the unity of the whole. Using a simple form repeatedly narrows the field of the work and concentrates the intensity to the arrangement of the form. This arrangement becomes the end while the form becomes the means...". So then why not apply this paragraph to any form thats already out/in here, especially a form or one considered a cultural relic or game like pinball? It'd be nice to keep & use the physical form of a pinball machine, instead of those online ones. The physical aspects of it, finger tappings, body all together involved in a thrust from head to toe, in which, he goes on " Writing of any kind is a physical fact. The physicality is its most obvious and and expressive content[...] the physicality of the work can become a contradiction to its non-emotive intent. Rhyme, meter, texture, and enjambment only emphasize the physical aspects of the work. Anything that calls attention to and interests the reader in this physicality is a deterrent to our understanding of the idea and is used as an expressive device." Ah, this is very nice. And it would be even nicer to have a printer of some kind, perhaps, attached to the pinball machine so that when the game ends, a hardcopy of the poem comes out. But why the need to involve a print-out? The pinball machine also seems to resemble, or at least animate, the printing process. It does start to seem like a printing press, with its gears, reminding me of that ancient one in Keith Waldrop's basement, but with the brief gestures of push/tap/pull levers & all the bright carnivalesque coquetry working together to combine lines in however way yet to be thought out.

No comments: