The Long and Short of It (Part 3)

PART 1 OF THIS SERIES IS HERE. 
PART 2 OF THIS SERIES IS HERE. 

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Based on a comment by Helen Vendler in her book Dickinson, Selected Poems and Commentaries, I started a series of posts on short poems (aside from short poetic forms like haiku).  Part 1, inspired by a three-line poem by Dickinson, and  part 2, on what is said to be the shortest poem in the world (by Aram Saroyan), are linked above.

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned that I had a few loose ends to knot up, starting with a funny story about lobstee – er, lobster.

Here’s the lowdown:

My wife and I were visiting the Atlantic coast of New Hampshire, the state with the least amount of coastline of any US state at just 13 miles, and as many do when visiting New England, we thought we’d have seafood for dinner.  At the ocean-side restaurant, I perused the menu and figured that at least one of us would order lobster (likely my wife since I prefer crab).  The menu, of course, ballyhooed their lobster, and within all the printed fanfare, it said “half or whole.”   When the server arrived to take our order, she asked if we had any questions.  I inquired about the lobster.  “If I order half, which half do I get?”

She. Just. Cackled.

She hollered for all of the other servers and bussers to come over to our table.  “He asked which half of the lobster he’d get,” she hooted.  Before long, I was surrounded by a chorus of roaring New Hampshirites.

Evidently, “half or whole” refers to a pound (or half) of lobster.

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My second loose end relates to my two-degrees-of-separation involving punk rocker Richard Hell, who co-published a book of word-art with Christopher Wool.  “Who the hell is Richard Hell?” I asked myself yesterday, and at dinner that night, as I told my wife about my shallow-dive into short works of poetry, Saroyan’s “m,” and Richard Hell’s word art in “Psychopts,” she said flatly, “We know Richard Hell,” as she finished ladling out a bowl of homemade minestrone soup.

Say whaaaat???  I knew I knew the name, but what the hell (pun intended) was the connection?  She reminded me that one of my college professor’s son had changed his name to Richard Hell.

Oooohhhh yeah.  Could this Richard Hell be one and the same?  Hell yeah! We googled it to be sure.
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Richard Hell, born Richard Lester Meyers, was the son of Carolyn H. Rhodes – not only a professor of some of my undergraduate English lit & poetry courses, but my academic advisor!  Whop bop b-luma b-lop bam bom!

SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION  Working backwards from Emily Dickinson:  On March 13, I wrote about Dickinson's poem "In the name of the Bee" and mentioned a podcast by Christopher Lydon >>> The podcast was of an interview with Helen Vendler about her book Dickinson, Selected Poems and Commentaries >>> Based on comments by Vendler on short poems, I began this series of posts and shared Aram Saroyan's single letter poem, "m" >>> As part of the post on "m," I explored word art by Richard Hell >>> Richard Hell was the son of college professor Carolyn H. Rhodes >>> Rhoades was my academic advisor at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA. 

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Thirdly, I promised to share an additional poem as short as “m,” and there is one by J. W. Curry composed of a lower-case i with his thumbprint as the dot – making this “i” uniquely own.

Speaking of “i,” I concluded yesterday’s post with Tom Snarsky’s comments and my responses on Saroyan’s “m.”  Snarsky followed his list of observations with this statement:

"The above list is just a jumping-off point. You may have seen something completely different in the piece. When you look at 'm,' what do you see?"

I added, “There is one more thing.  I'll include that with my list of loose ends tomorrow.”

Well, I mentioned earlier that I’d reviewed my post from yesterday with my wife that night, and I showed her Saroyan’s poem “m” to get her reaction.  It was not favorable, but she humored me while I recounted Snarsky’s comments and my responses.

Just as I finished up and turned my screen’s view of “m-with-the-extra-leg” away from her, she said, “I see ‘I am.’”

Say what?

“I see ‘I am.’”

I looked at “m” again. Okay, I could envisage what she was describing, so I tried to refashion Saroyan’s “m” as “i am” with the Playbill font – both with a capital I (below on the left) and a lower-case I, sans dot (below on the right).  I did so by trying to match the size and position of the serif blocks on the bottoms of the two letters:

The results?  Well, my experiment didn’t quite work – but I could visualize what she saw in the – dare I say – poem. TBH, as single word/word art poetry goes, some merger of “m” with “i’m” a la Cummings or Curry would work better for me than just an “m” with an extra leg.

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Finally, I promised yesterday that today I would share “more (and better) examples of word art.”
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Oddly enough, a few days before I even knew I’d be publishing a series of posts on short poems, I saw an Insta Reels uploaded by @CallItDesignCo, and I emailed it to myself.  I knew I’d share it in the coming days, and lo and behold, it fits perfectly with these recent posts on word art.  The post includes nine slides with word art, the work of Austrian artist @AnatolKnotek, and you’ll know immediately upon viewing it why I saved the link.  The opening slide shows an oddly expanded version of the words “THE POEM.”  Upon close examination, though, I realized that it had actually said, “THE PROBLEM”; however, the letters R, B, and L had fallen by the wayside to create “THE P O  EM.”

I was hooked immediately.  Others I loved are the following:

The complete Reels is HERE. 

Also, I have for years enjoyed the word art of Scott Kim.

Left:  Turn the "art" poster upside down, and it becomes quote by Pablo Picasso:  Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.  Right top:  Mathematics can be read upright or upside-down.  Right bottom:  Infinity

Much more of his word art, HERE.

I ​ gotta say, I think these examples exceed Saroyan’s and Hell’s word art in both cleverness, depth, ad complexity.  What do you think?

A little more on short poems tomorrow.  Stay tuned.