Illustrated Poetry

[bogusagain]

Probably the best illustrated poems were in Emblemata or emblem books, which were popular in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. The books are usually made up of short verses which have an accompanying image. I say image rather than illustration because the text and image are supposed to work in parallel with each other, not the image illustrating the text or the text describing the image. If the writer and the artist are not the same, they should independently consider the same subject, providing image and text which work both independently and together. This usually requires symbolistic imagery where the reader understands the symbolism. Emblemata were both relgious and secular and were usually moral in nature. The image having multiple interpretations which good imagery requires. There were also images of Ars Amatoria (the art of love).

I tried to make one an emblem book once but they are very difficult to do and be successful because the text and image need to work both indeopendently and together on the same subject. Not at all easy to achieve. The nearest I ever got to being successful was quite accidently when I wrote a poem about about a woman who used to model for me for a life study. I put the poem and image together and I feel they were relatively successful together. After that success I tried to do more but they just didn't work.

This is the poem and image I felt was successful.

her body was her life made manifest
a physical map of psychological scars
eating the comfort her lovers didn’t provide
until her lovers became memories
and memories became food
she complained as she manoeuvred
her walrus bulk wearing high heels
her dough like flesh folding
into a pile of cushions as she sat

the study of the human form has its price
she assassinated the men who had shared her bed
while my pencil plotted her contours
blue veins marbling through her thighs
she had wrapped around so many men
pulled them into her as she buried their faces
in breasts as huge and as white as freshly laundered pillows
which made me question their survival
their gasping for breath as they struggled
sucked into her fatty envelopes

her flattened buttocks textured with dimples
an apron of fat, like a modesty blanket over her groin
my cruel pencil, unrelenting in its honesty
recreated the beauty of her ugly topography
the sweaty clefts where lovers indulged
lapping their tongues through her creases
desperation and the act of physical love
the stupefying need to feel someone else's skin
and my need to examine the consequences

 

[twelveoone]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BGjaL5329Q

 

[butters]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BGjaL5329Q

scoobydoobydoo!

 

[bogusagain]

Just remembered Roger McGough's pop poem Summer Monika illustrated by pop artist Peter Blake.

Whimsical but then, it is poetry on the level of Andy Warhol and richard Hamilton etc. etc.

 

[twelveoone]

Probably the best illustrated poems were in Emblemata or emblem books, which were popular in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. The books are usually made up of short verses which have an accompanying image. I say image rather than illustration because the text and image are supposed to work in parallel with each other, not the image illustrating the text or the text describing the image. If the writer and the artist are not the same, they should independently consider the same subject, providing image and text which work both independently and together. This usually requires symbolistic imagery where the reader understands the symbolism. Emblemata were both relgious and secular and were usually moral in nature. The image having multiple interpretations which good imagery requires. There were also images of Ars Amatoria (the art of love).

I tried to make one an emblem book once but they are very difficult to do and be successful because the text and image need to work both indeopendently and together on the same subject. Not at all easy to achieve. The nearest I ever got to being successful was quite accidently when I wrote a poem about about a woman who used to model for me for a life study. I put the poem and image together and I feel they were relatively successful together. After that success I tried to do more but they just didn't work.

This is the poem and image I felt was successful.

her body was her life made manifest
a physical map of psychological scars
eating the comfort her lovers didn’t provide
until her lovers became memories
and memories became food
she complained as she manoeuvred
her walrus bulk wearing high heels
her dough like flesh folding
into a pile of cushions as she sat

the study of the human form has its price
she assassinated the men who had shared her bed
while my pencil plotted her contours
blue veins marbling through her thighs
she had wrapped around so many men
pulled them into her as she buried their faces
in breasts as huge and as white as freshly laundered pillows
which made me question their survival
their gasping for breath as they struggled
sucked into her fatty envelopes

her flattened buttocks textured with dimples
an apron of fat, like a modesty blanket over her groin
my cruel pencil, unrelenting in its honesty
recreated the beauty of her ugly topography
the sweaty clefts where lovers indulged
lapping their tongues through her creases
desperation and the act of physical love
the stupefying need to feel someone else's skin
and my need to examine the consequences

actually this reminded me of Gustave Dore in the Inferno, I viewed the illustration as a redundancy, however, redundancies often serve a purpose in poetry, as Shakespeare often used Saxon and Latinante to strengthen and shade the message. Here it was a good call. The picture was subordinate to the words.

 

[twelveoone]

I think the whole thread should be done as an illustrated comic book. With dialog balloons. And thought balloons added.

I think I saw *asshole* at least thirty four times.
And it's always amusing to see an irresistible force meet an immovable object.

SPLAT Plop