Visual Poetry / Being unable to concentrate/read - blame Visual Poetry?

 

Happiness Limited, RTomens, 2024

Three recent 'figurative' pieces because recently I've found myself drawn to the idea of faces/figures combined with typing - humans! - and letters - and perhaps, text - because...

Cultural Studies, RTomens, 2024

...I have to face facts, there are humans in this world, along with letters - and - for so long I have been consumed by letters...so they call it Visual Poetry, don't they? So now, meanwhile, for a spell, I shift towards representations of people but of course they too are either consumed by or constructed from letters. Someone suggested of one (not featured here) that it was a 'self-portrait' - so, perhaps it was!

I blame my typed letters for my inability to concentrate on reading those arranged so as to form words - bah! Or is it the dreaded internet syndrome shattering my neurons (?) - rewiring my brain to only be capable of such limited concentration! Yes, we know about that one. 

I say 'concentrate' - I do - but really, it's literature that I cannot concentrate on - no book finished for weeks! I can 'read' Visual Poetry, yes (can you?) - letters to be read. Now, right now though, I'll not blame myself...but the authors! Damned authors! Who do they think they are? Assuming they can fill my head with thousands of words and I'll enjoy it! The nerve! Most books are, as Philip Larkin said, a beginning, a muddle and an end (my friend says that's cynical, but then he's an avid reader whilst I am an enthusiastic one who's struggling to maintain that enthusiasm).

I'm known amongst friends as a 'fussy' reader - a stubborn refusenik of prose that does not capture me - life's too short! But, they say, it could get better. What if the opening is building up to sensational content? Bah! 

I may have to resign myself to having brought this problem upon myself through typing scrambled letters for so long - every day - tic-tac-tic-tac-tic-tac - ordered letters are starting to make no sense! It's a miracle I'm able to put them in the write order here, now, this moment. 

That's all for now. I need a rest. TTFN!

The Word Spirit, RTomens, 2024