How could I have lived this long and not known about about calligrams? I love letters and art, so throw poetry into the mix and voila, there is a thing of such beauty it takes my breath away.
I’ve seen letters cleverly arranged into shapes to create an image that expresses the meaning of the letters or words. Simple, nice. For example,
Letters or words create a visual image of themselves
An image created using related words
But calligram poetry! It’s beautiful:
Apollinaire's Dessin
Apollinaire's Dessin Il Pleut
Apollinaire's Eiffel Tower
Guillaume Apollinaire was a French writer born in Italy in 1880 of Polish parents. He famously wrote a book about calligrams, published in 1918. (Makes me feel really ignorant, having not heard of or seen these wonderful visual poems.) Calligrammes: Poèmes de la paix et de la guerre 1913- 1916 (1918) from An Introduction to Guillaume Apollinaire. He also wrote the children’s books “Madeleine”, which I do know about.
Other beautiful calligrams that I’ve found:
(Click on the title to find out more about the author)
*
*the*
*diamond*
*on my hand*
*reflecting love*
*stars , dance*
*an endless*
*diamond*
*sky*
t a d
e o
a r w
r i n
s v
e a
s r
t s
r o a
e f d
a
m s f
i o a
n r c
g r e
o
w
(Sometimes it is called concrete poetry – I suppose because the visual element gives a solid dimension – but I don’t like this description at all) This author calls her poem a concrete poem …
Apparently calligram means beautiful writing, and so it is!
I’ve started creating my own calligrams. These can be viewed in My Artwork and Calligrams Where you will find calligrams for love, inspiration, hearts, music, valentines and more …
If you’re interested, the context for these calligrams can be seen in these posts:
The Power of Visual Poetry – Destiny
Calligrams – Visual Poetry here you will find calligrams of hearts, stars, music and more.
A Christmas Calligram
Blood Diamonds
Calligrams for Inspiration
Hey Denny – What software / links do you use to create these? I would love to try
I use an iPad app called type drawing. It’s great fun … I squander heaps of time playing around with it … Denny
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