Prolonged visual perception in poetry

The combination of text-image in poetry

It is until 19^th century that the encounter between poetic texts and images has been realized. Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, and Mallarmé …these most innovative poets of nineteenth century tended to take advantage of the painting therefore they tried to make the two artistic forms into one. They eliminated the obstacles of « I see » (« je vois ») from the speech (Christin, 1995, p. 123). Among them, Apollinaire initiated his affirmation « moi aussi je suis peintre » (me, I am also painter) by creating his famous calligram after the verse figure. The encounter of poetry and images has demonstrated us how they probe, negoti-ate, and interact with each other.

La grande innovation d’Apollinaire est d’avoir réutilisé ce matériel d’occasion que constituait le calligramme pour le faire servir véritable-ment, dans une perspective à la fois psychologique et poétique, à la re-constitution d’un acte poétique beaucoup plus qu’à la simple lecture, qui est toujours un phénomène passif ⁸⁶ (Christin, 1995, p. 113).

The famous « le poème à Lou » by Guillaume Apollinaire has showed us his concept of calligram (see poem 1). The figure of the poem corresponds exactly to the girl Lou wearing her hat. Linguistic materials in the calligram have abandoned their regular syntacti-cal order as in text. Instead, they submit their layout to the shape of the portrait. There also exists the delicate correspondence between the description of words and their position as images in the calligram: « le grand chapeau canotier, œil, nez, la bouche, l’ovale de ta figure, le coeur … ». It seems that the poet tends to replace the lines and curves of image by the shape of the letters and words. This calligram positions itself closer to images, presenting more in a recreational manner. This combination of text-image could possibly build a bridge for young readers to get familiar with the « text » world without totally quitting from the « image » world. It may gradually delay and alleviate the strangeness and uncomforta-bleness brought by the brutal change in a visual perspective so that it could save young readers more time and pleasure to get used to the written world.

Strategies to prolong the visual perception in calligrams

86 The great innovation of Apollinaire is to have reused this used material that constituted the calligram to make it serve truly, in a perspective both psychological and poetic, the reconstitution of a poetic act much more than the simple reading, which is always a passive phenomenon (Translated by DL).

Scattered linguistic fragments, original order of thinking, plural-systematical punctua-tion, ubiquitous free spaces, associative ideas … to name just a few, are also found in calli-grams. These traits interweave this « unity in complexity » in calligram. If the text-image combination serves as the first and superficial step of visual perception, poets should in-tend for further stepping onto the reflection in poetry. The key of reaching a multidimen-sional visual perception, thus maximizing the visual thinking is, as we mentioned before, to slow down its processing procedure. Traits in calligrams could precisely match this delaying tactic. Let us take a few calligrams to find out what are these delaying statics in poetry and how they function in reality. The examples are from two poems of Michel Leiris: « Amour

» and « Michel Leiris » (see poem 2 and poem 3).

Figure 1 - Poème à Lou Figure 2 - Poème Amour Figure 3 - Poème Michel Leiris

Although we are capable to identify the words « AMOUR » and « MICHEL LEIRIS » in the calligrams right away, it seems that their original presentations always invite us to stay a little longer to unlock numerous question marks aroused in readers’ mind: letters are dis-persed or reshaped, spaces are reorganized and even the significances of words are partially altered. But why? All these questions will urge readers to slow down and stare at the calli-gram for a second look. This pause is considered as an essential gesture from visual percep-tion to visual thinking.

If letters have reached a certain balance of energy in one word in text, their disper-sion from the word could set free their respective energy, thus aiming for a reconstruction of other units in a new balance. As Lapacherie presented, every alphabet has its own form and weight, opacity and consistency… every letter presents itself as an automatic and pic-turesque form. « Elle est le dessin schématisé d’un objet, nommé dans la légende des gloses

illustrées »⁸⁷ (Bassy et al., 1980, p. 59). In calligram, spaces are cut into (ir)regular pieces by scattered letters. These pieces occasionally accumulate or disperse, as if they were com-pressed or extended in shape. The space, cooperated with letters, challenges readers’ eyes and mind. As Lockerbie utters, readers wish to build their own ideal images in mind by reconstructing the letters and spaces in poetry. The most unexpected position of letters creates the most surprising connections between letters in mind, thus we could achieve the most fruitful reconstruction (the creation). The reconstruction doesn’t equal a linear dispo-sition (like in the traditional writing) nor the reading that submits to the mathematical, ho-mogenous and irreversible time, but follows a totally subverted time (Lapacherie, 1983, p.

34). Let us observe below how these lurked strategies function in calligrams.

Il s'agit moins d'une peinture statique que de la construction de l'espace par l'œil du lecteur dans les mouvements qu'il est obligé de faire pour re-lier les éléments épars et reconstituer dans son esprit le tableau idéal qui n'existe pas sur la page. La lecture du ciel étoilé joue un rôle important dans cette opération: autant sa position inattendue en bas de la page crée une impression de profondeur, autant les mouvements de l'œil allant d'une étoile à l'autre tissent un réseau de rapports qui structurent la pers-pective spatiale ainsi ouverte⁸⁸ (Lockerbie, 1977, p. 59).

The five capital letters in calligram « AMOUR » develop themselves in depth delicately following the order of word spelling. Every letter has different sizes and positions nested in analogy. Lapacherie considers letters as the key: « la clef déclenchant les ressorts de notre imagination »⁸⁹ (Lockerbie, 1977, p. 2). Letters seem to be mobilized one after another, in-viting readers to open each « door » belonged to the word right into its center or to strip every layer of the word right into its core. The deep secret of the word inside seems gradu-ally unveiled by the invitation of the enigmatic letters. It puts us into a three-dimensional space where A seems much closer than R to us. Our intimacy towards the five letters is consequently altered. What’s more, letters as « A, M, O, U » in the calligram bring their

87 It is the schematic drawing of an object, named in the legend of illustrated glosses(Translated by DL).

88 It is less a question of a static painting than that of the space construction by the reader's eye in the movements which he is obliged to make in order to link the scattered elements and reconstitute in his mind the ideal picture that does not exist on the page. Reading the starry sky plays an important role in this operation: its unexpected position at the bottom of the page creates an impression of depth, so much the movements of the eye going from one star to another weave a network of relationships that structure the spatial perspective thus opened(Translated by DL).

89 … the key triggering the spring of our imagination(Translated by DL).

figurations into full play, thus demonstrate us a collective vertical symmetry in vision. These aesthetic experiences could impress us with its perspective adopted from observing images.

The reconstruction of the word « AMOUR » thus brought us a new perspective towards our visual perception.

Another calligram is named after the poet: Michel Leiris. We could see that the letters arrange in a rhombus by reflecting the poet’s name. The letters form the word « Michel » while climbing (descending) to the top (bottom) in order, shares its last two letters to initi-ate the rest letters forming « Leiris » and then push it down (up) in order. Letters spread in an oblique direction, and partly incorporate with each other (« Michel » and « Leiris » share two letters: « e » and « l »). This calligram could globally be folded into two counterparts according to its horizontal symmetry line composed by « MI…IS ». It impresses us with its mirror-like visual effect, as if observing an image. The whole space is segmented into five parts: four open spaces and one closed area. The closed area, surrounded by the name of the poet, seems to exhibit an exclusive space where poet could reflect on (both visually and mentally) himself, without being disturbed from the outside world. The reconstruction of the poet’s name has dug out deeper reflection towards the narcism.

According to the analysis of the two calligrams, It is not hard to point out the strate-gies used in the calligrams in order to prolong our visual perceptions according to the anal-ysis of the two poems from Michel Leiris: the decomposed letter power, the extension of space and most importantly the reconstruction that comes along. Could this reconstruction stimulate our brain and attain our goal of visual thinking?