Using+Language+as+an+Art+Form

Somehow the word, poetry, has a bad reputation, so we are going to have to think about something different.

Language is not only a way to make meaning, but it also has substance to it, so we can play not just with meanings but with the substance of language. We can look at language and hear it.

Think about words the way you think about paint. If you paint a sky, then the color blue "means" sky. But the color blue is a substance and in the context of other colors can mean different things, such as this blue painting from Picasso:

So, words can mean what they mean, but if we put them in contexts where their substance matters, then they can do other tricks. And it can be fun. So, instead of playing with Legos, let's play with logos (bad pun on the Greek word for "word").

Visual
For example, we can look at words, such as this example of Lewis Carroll's "The Mouse's Tail"http://bootless.net/mouse.html

Here are other examples of words being used for their visual forms:

So, one approach we can take to language in terms of its actual substance, is through the visual arts. We can manipulate words visually to go along with (or challenge) their semantic meanings.

Visual language resources: http://www.wild-about-woods.org.uk/elearning/concretepoetry/

The Sound of Language
Another characteristic of language is its sound.

For one thing, we can use language to sound like something in the world.

http://library.thinkquest.org/J0112392/omomatopoea.html media type="youtube" key="q-BVwwKTjlI" height="344" width="425"

We can tell stories with the sounds of the world made into language: http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Onomatopoeia[Warning, this story works best for people over the age of 18 due to language choices of the author].

Another way that language makes sound is through the rhythm of words. To illustrate this, I am going to use some parodies of Dr. Seuss. Here's one about e-mail spam based on Green Eggs and Ham http:////www.seuss.org/seuss/spam.i.am.html

And one that parodies The Grinch http:////www.seuss.org/seuss/grinch.coder.html Do you hear how the Green Eggs rhythm is da-DAH da-DAH da-DAH da-DAHI do not like them Sam I Am And the Grinch rhythm is: All the Whos down in Whoville the young and the old da da DAH da da DAH da da DAH da da DAH Really, the names of these patterns don't matter (okay, the first is iambic and the second anapest if you really want to know). What matters when we use the rhythm of language is that a regular beat unifies a set of words even if the meaning is silly. Here's our good friend Lewis Carroll again with the Jabberwocky--a nonsense poem that is unified in part by the regular pattern of beats:http://www.jabberwocky.com/carroll/jabber/jabberwocky.html

Another way we can play with the sounds of words is through the sounds of the letters that make them up. This is what tongue twisters do. http://www.uebersetzung.at/twister/ Sometimes those sounds are at the beginning of words (okay, okay, I'll give the poetic name--alliteration) and sometimes they are in the middle of the word (consonance) and sometimes the sounds involve vowels rather than consonants (assonance). Really the names don't matter. What matters is that when you want to draw a word picture, you can use the letter sounds as a part of your palette.



When artists prepare to paint pictures, they squeeze the colors they like onto a palette and they can mix the colors right there on the palette or they can blend them together on the canvas. Those of us who make word art, we have a palette, too. We have the visual images of letters and the words they make. And we have their sounds. In prose, what links words together is logic--ideas that are linked together. In poetry, the substance of words--their sounds and their images--link words together, so we don't have to make a formal argument (unless we want to--some poems do this). Play with words--it might be best to put them on separate pieces of paper and then move them around. Read them out loud so you can hear their sounds--the sounds of the letters and the rhythm of words put together.