It's O'er in about 121 Letters

mIEKAL aND, O'er (25 December 2010)
My friend mIEKAL aND decided to turn 53 on Christmas Day last year. It was his decision. So next he decided to make 53 copies a book of visual poetry from scratch on his 53rd birthday and hand-stitch them together. Today, I received my copy.

Using a total of only 121 letters overlapped upon one another, mIEKAL has played a few simple vispoetic gestures against a few simple words. Many of these are quite simple (like the one that overlaps "dog" upon "god" [on Christmas, no less!] to create a visually balanced word that is at once "god" and "dog"), and some of them are exotic imbrications that form intricate little textual sigils. 


An example of the latter is "plaaayyss," just above, a jovial little visual pwoermd in which the idea of playing (it makes me think of various rides on a playground) is made playfully, through the process of playing with text and finding out what it can do. In the second poem above, four words are overlapping: "hot," "hut," "not," and "nut," the difference between the h and the n noted by the grey of the aitch's ascender. Now, I'm not sure if this makes this poem a hot nut hut or not, but it's doubled t is a beauty, almost a cursive sight.


The poem "ssaammee" (note these "titles" are only my sequential transcriptions of these poems) almost seems to spin, especially those esses (which resemble a triskadelion or a fylfot*) and those off-kilter e's. The poem undermines itself, it is all aporia (in the deconstructionist sense), it shows how it is nothing like what it says it is.

And this is the kind of writing I like most: textual, semantic, minimalist, visual, imaginative, and entertaining. I still believe poetry is about entertainment, no matter what else it is, so my thanks to mIEKAL for this book (and for the inspiration, for giving me an idea what I can do on my next birthday), these poems, these words, these letters.

Although there are only 53 copies in the world, the good news is that you can read a digital version online. Though noticeably different from the paper version, you'll get the idea.

_____

* Yes, there's a reason I chose the word "fylfot" in place of other options.

aND, mIEKAL. O'er. i'mprint deluxe: [West Lima, Wisc.], 2010.

ecr. l'inf.