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Cryptopoems
Encoded within unique and structurally challenging forms lie mwpm's "cryptopoems," puzzle-like arrangements of letters concealing lines of poetic meaning that unfold to careful readers. Surveying a variety of mwpm's signature forms, each built on a simple set of constraints, CRYPTOPOEMS has been produced in a limited edition of 50 hand-bound chapbooks.
- GenresPoetry
15 pages, Chapbook
Published April 1, 2018
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 14, 2018
Poems are often easy to read but difficult to understand, here we have the opposite!
This falls somewhere between sudoku and ascii art, each poem needs to be deciphered. I ended up reading most of these backwards as for some reason I found that easier. 'i can't sleep' was my favorite, because it was simple, formed a 'tight shape' on the page, and the syntax seemed to resemble insomnia and so effectively got the feeling across. I read these online for free from the publishers website, deciphering these probably would have been more fun on paper.
I wonder whether this could be expanded in lengthier poems or series of poems to incorporate an ascii art element. Like, if the poems were long enough detailed drawings could be made with the letters which either capture the image of the poem or start a series of images that connect other poems in the same way. In any case, I find that as a reader the more appealing poems were not those that were difficult to work out (I never fully cracked 16/116 or 16/?), but those that had ciphers that seemed to match the text, like a fun and simple cipher for a fun and simple message (like in 'cats hate the rain'). It'd be interesting if ciphers could be related in their movement to the message of a poem, like if one had to alternate between looking left and right on a poem about walking.
All in all, a cool idea.
This falls somewhere between sudoku and ascii art, each poem needs to be deciphered. I ended up reading most of these backwards as for some reason I found that easier. 'i can't sleep' was my favorite, because it was simple, formed a 'tight shape' on the page, and the syntax seemed to resemble insomnia and so effectively got the feeling across. I read these online for free from the publishers website, deciphering these probably would have been more fun on paper.
I wonder whether this could be expanded in lengthier poems or series of poems to incorporate an ascii art element. Like, if the poems were long enough detailed drawings could be made with the letters which either capture the image of the poem or start a series of images that connect other poems in the same way. In any case, I find that as a reader the more appealing poems were not those that were difficult to work out (I never fully cracked 16/116 or 16/?), but those that had ciphers that seemed to match the text, like a fun and simple cipher for a fun and simple message (like in 'cats hate the rain'). It'd be interesting if ciphers could be related in their movement to the message of a poem, like if one had to alternate between looking left and right on a poem about walking.
All in all, a cool idea.
Displaying 1 of 1 review