3 lines = haiku

Scott Helmes, "haiku #92" (2011)




On Scott Helmes birthday, which was yesterday, I received this print from him, which reminds me that I never send him gifts, though he sends them to me.

It is a small gift, but dear. Scott has spent years perfecting his technique, and he is one of the great artists in the world of visual poetry. This work is a word of textual abstraction.

Into it, Scott has assembled a number of fragments of letters, which he has put together into shapes that resemble words, but unreadable ones. It is the beauty of these shapes, how they fit together as if they were always one, and how they mimic writing without ever seeming to be writing that makes this a great poem.

These shapes are pressed deeply, and in a pure black, into the cream sheet of heavy cardstock. This poem is a physical even. Would that all visual poets could be so talented.

I am tired from a long week and a long night and will head off to bed soon, but to bed with a mind filled with these unreadable words.

I realize that I don't even mind Scott's beautiful signature, maybe because it is as unreadable as his text. Maybe because it is outside the true frame of the piece itself and it doesn't destroy the mise en page of the piece. Maybe because I love beauty.


ecr. l'inf.