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<strong>PhotoStatic</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> Nº37 P R O D U C T I O N , One of the most popular devices used by visual poets is what I call the Disconcealment, or the typographical modification of words or phrases so as to reveal other words or phrases concealed within them. A good place to observe the use of this device at its best is in a book by the contemporary poet and vizlator, Kathy Ernst, Sequencing. Sequencing (which is available from Xexoxial Editions, 1341 Williamson St, Madison WI 53703, for $4) contains 88 poems, three of which I want to discuss here. The first is called “Your Secret Life”. “Your Secret Life” is a characteristic example of the masterful way Ernst uses a disconcealment I call the “arrowence.” An arrowence is the use of some extra typographical symbol or form such as…an arrow—or parentheses, underlining, dashes, italics, etc. in order to point an æsthcipient toward something within a text that he might otherwise overlook. In “Your Secret Life”, for example, actual arrows work a large E into two different words: follow the arrows made of squares and one will find the word “Ending”. Go back from the n in the right corner as directed by the more normal-looking arrow and one will find V I Z L A T U R E a column on verbo-visual art by Bob Grumman On K.S. Ernst and the Disconcealment 1372 A U G U S T
N O T R E P R O D U C T I O N Retrofuturism Nº10 “never”. Add “bafflement” and the poem will spell “neverending bafflement”, a neat characterization of the subject, the person with the secret life who is addressed. “nERVE” is available, too, for whatever that’s worth. “VERVE”, too. Thus does the disconcealment jiggle ordinary words beyond their first meanings. Although it is not emphatically metaphoric, “Your Secret Life” has touches of the figurative. One is the way most of the letters of “bafflement” shrink down to secret-size and hide in the E, thus metaphoring a kind of subterranean life. At the same time the word enacts a visual metaphor for bafflement, its spelling causing that state, at least initially, for most readers. The second of the three samples of Sequencing I want to discuss is called “Philosophy”. Its main form of disconcealment is Crosswording, which consists of the sharing of one or more letters between two or more words (or phrases)—as, in fact, in the poem just examined. It allows “Philosophy” to say, “ThOughTS in KnOTS”— which, presumably, is what philosophy consists of. The piece also makes use of the most common kind of disconcealment, the Disruption. The Disruption is merely the breaking up of a word or phrase in such a way as to reveal inner words or partial words that increase its potential for meaningfulness. The insertion of spaces into words would be another way to describe this device. It occurs in almost all of the poems in Sequencing, including “Your Secret Life”. In “Philosophy” the Disruption produces such extra meanings as the “ugh” that philosophical exertion in part is, and “Thin” and “think’n”, which are minor but add appropriate atmospheric effects to the poem. The arrangement of letters is to a degree a visual onomatopœia for knots, too—that is, it looks like what it denotes. Perhaps my favorite of the poems in Ernst’s collection is the one called “Proserpina”. This poem depends chiefly on disconcealment by crosswording: the words “have” and “come” are linked by a shared “E”; and an “I” crosswords the result into “I come” and “I have”. Two Es lower on the 1 9 8 9 1373
Page 1 and 2: In This Issue: New Age Roundup Bing
Page 3 and 4: N O T R E P R O D U C T I O N Retro
Page 15: N O T R E P R O D U C T I O N Retro

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