Michael P. Garofalo: Concrete-Visual Poetry

Tai Chi Chuan, Short Form, 24 Movement, Peking Version

Fri, 23 May 2003 13:07:01 GMT

"While making a stride, it is as quietly as a cat walks, and while putting forth strength the exertion is so mild that it looks like reeling off raw silk from a cocoon. The movements, like clouds floating in the sky, are spry and light, but well-balanced and steady. Motion is even and fluid, the muscles neither stiff nor rigid. Breathing should be deep and even ... the mind is tranquil but alert, with consciousness commanding the body. In practising T'ai Chi Chuan it is essential that movements be guided by consciousness and that there be stillness in movement - a unity of stillness and motion."
- Official Chinese instruction manual for the 24 movement short form, quoted by Howard Reid in his book "The Way of Harmony," p. 90.

Cloud Hands Tai Chi Chuan and Qi Gong

Tai Chi Chuan (Taijiquan)

Thu, 22 May 2003 12:59:05 GMT

Those interested in a website with good links and a extensive bibliography about Tai Chi Chuan (Taijiquan) should visit the Cloud Hands website. The website expands each day with new and interesting information, links, and references.

Those interested in the Yang Style of Tai Chi Chuan Simplified 24 Movement Form will find a webpage with a list of the 24 movements, comments, links, bibliography, and quotations.

Z - Alphabetic Poem by Michael P. Garofalo.

Thu, 23 Jan 2003 03:44:25 GMT

'crete 'oems: mpgarofalo

Mon, 20 Jan 2003 21:19:51 GMT

Paradoxes

Visual Illusions

Impossible Objects

Logical Paradoxes - Links

Principles of Artistic Illusions

Are "black" and "black" both black?

"There is a place where Contrarieties are equally True... ."
- William Blake, Milton (Second Book)

"This statement is false!''

With one step the Tortoise leapt over half of whatever was left,
and with two more steps she left infinity in the dust.

Concrete Poems by Michael P. Garofalo

The Color of Three

Tue, 24 Dec 2002 23:18:09 GMT

"The role of today's visual poet is to carry on in the tradition of the Indian vedic poets, the Zen Buddhists, poets Chuang Tzu and William Blake, and the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, who each attempted to explode our familiar language patterns so we can see clearly and directly. Only then can we recognize the limits imposed by language. We artists must expose the falsity of the nalytical, linear world view that our language enforces. Visual poetry can provide the jolt necessary for us to cut through the conceptualizations of language and to experience the transcendence of The Word."

- Carol Stetser, The Color of Three

Concrete poetry can point to ideas, true or false, that might embrace non-linear and non-analytical views about the world. Its range of expression of ideas and images is more constrained; trying to do more with less. Even with a more limited palette for communication, it can also express paradox, non-sequiturs, irrationality, puzzling examples, and meaninglessness in creative arrangements of words and letters; but, as with conventional poetry, which has a more powerful and varied range, concrete poems may also raise the bar of clear and robust communication. The best poems, concrete or not, all produce that "jolt" of awareness and insight that reveals some important, to the reader, aspect of the nature of human experience that goes far beyond the words or images or technique that convey these "truths"; keen expressions of "yea" that transcend the medium of communication, providing a fuzzy gestalt of new meanings outside the words themselves.

Visual poetry, on the other hand, offers methods of combining text with visual images (e.g., photographs, charts, color, drawings, electronic and print graphics, painting, collage, typographical arts, etc.). This is an extremely robust palette for communicating, expression, business, and reaction. The full range of human interests and concerns can be explored and expressed in visual poetry. We all have sometimes been "jolted" into a new level of awareness by reading newspapers, magazines, books, and electronic media that have combined words and images in an unforgettable manner. Some picture-poems have helped change our world views.

So, just what is the color of the number three? Or, the sound of one hand clapping, or the nature of our face before we were born? Sometimes, trying to answer these questions is like being a fly stuck in a square glass bottle, bouncing off the invisible constraints, uncomfortably stuck
in a dangerous muddle, squared up,
contained, caught,
BOXed-in.

Boxed-in
A concrete poem by Michael P. Garofalo

===================================================
===================================================

I use Dreamweaver Fireworks 4 to play with, practice with, and create new concrete poems. The software offers many text manipulation and control features. It features good output to standard web safe file formats, and in smaller file sizes. The options to attach text to paths, create layers of text, distort and skew text shapes, and apply effects to text fonts are very powerful. Also, Fireworks is a useful software tool for creating whole splash web pages.

I also use Dreamweaver MX to create the web page structure and background for the display of my concrete poems.

I try to keep my concrete poems to a one screen viewing size on IE 6.0. This provides a background area of roughly 9" wide and 6" high; and, an image area canvas of roughly 5 1/4" x 5 1/4" inches, or 500 x 500 pixels. or 13.25 ac 13.25 cm.

In Fireworks 4, the working file images are .png files, vector formatted images, and quite scalable as needed. The images can be saved to .gif or .jpg formats as needed for use on the web. The transparent .gif images look great in web pages.

===================================================
===================================================

Sun, 22 Dec 2002 22:55:21 GMT

Title: 1 - 1 = 0 = 1 - 1

A concrete poem by Michael P. Garofalo

Concrete Poetry: Indexes, Guides, Bibliography, and Some Poems

Form is emptiness; emptiness also is form.
Emptiness is no other than form;
form is no other than emptiness.
In the same way, feeling, perception, formation, and
Consciousness are emptiness. Thus, Shariputra,
All dharmas are emptiness.
There are no characteristics.
There is no birth and no cessation.
There is no impurity and no purity.
There is no decrease and no increase.

Buddhist Heart Sutra

All of the existent, conditioned dharmas
Are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, shadows;
Like dew and also like lightning:
Thus should they be contemplated.

Buddhist Diamond Prajnaparamita Sutra

Zen Poetry