Carmina Figurata 2024

My speculative poetry book Dragons & Rayguns contains two concrete poems that are carmina figurata (singular: carmen figuratum), which form a visual image on the page from poetic lines read straight across, jumping over white spaces. These are "Space Opera" and "The Raygun's Plea for Understanding." (Below, you can click on each poem to read it more clearly in a magnified image if you would like.) If you are having trouble reading the poem (this image is kind of small), you can click on it to see it larger and crisper. Also, here is the text of the poem, taken out of shape. A blunt lipstick-shaped tube of dull gray points up to gunmetal sky covered by drab clouds of acid ice scoring the ground with hard pellets of sulfur hail like fiery bullets of burning brimstone dredged from hell’s deep abyss. Flash Gordon taking off to Ming the Merciless’s planet to rescue Dale Arden from that fate worse than death. Night’s shroud is falling. The red-orange blast of his engines glows like morning, a little harbinger of hope in stormy darkness. The small ship soars, a desperate arrow. The second poem I wrote when I was putting together Dragons & Rayguns. It occurred to me that I didn't have enough "raygun" poems in the book, so . . . voila! Again, if you're having trouble reading, click on it for a magnified image, or else here's the poem text, outside of the raygun shape. PEW PEW PEW That’s how most folks think we rayguns sound. Or maybe blam kablooey rrip. Well, everyone, often there’s no sound ‘cause we are battling out in space. No air. No vibrations. Simple flashes of light, piercing flashes, pardon the pun. Energy beams even, rays, if you will. No flash at all, sometimes. I’m tired of the stereotype. We rayguns are sensitive. We don’t indiscriminately kill. We are careful, selective, canny. Some of us have not ever fired one shot. So relax! I learned how to write carmina figurata from the poet Jan D. Hodge, who is the absolute best concrete poet in the US, maybe in the world. He would type a page full of x's and then erase whatever was needed to draw the desired shape. Then he would substitute words for the x's, sometimes not from top to bottom, but inserting text that coincided with parts of the image. Brilliant. Here's one of Jan's carmina figurata, "Carousel II": Jan D. Hodge, "Carousel II" (2012) You can read a entire book full of Jan's carmina figurata in his collection, Taking Shape (2015). In this book, you'll find a poem that I was fortunate to publish in the North American Review, in the amazing shape of a harpsichord superimposed over a guillotine. Speaking of buying books, at the start of this post, I linked my book Dragons & Rayguns to Amazon. If you want to buy a book and would like me to sign your copy, buy it direct from Final Thursday Press here. And then also email the press that you want an inscription. Since we're looking at visual imagery, here's the cover of Dragons & Rayguns, designed by my son Marty Gotera, who is a graphic designer in Germany. When I asked him to do it, I specified that I would like it to have a comic-book vibe and feature a dragon as well as a raygun. I think he did an incredible job. What do you think? Cover of Dragons & Rayguns by Marty Gotera (2024) As always, I'd love to get some feedback or discuss anything with all y'all. Comment, okay? Thanks. Ingat.