dirtee konkreet by bill bissett, jim andrews

these 200 screenshots are from aleph null 3.0 sessions of aleph null writing circular samples of composit images of dirtee konkreet pomes by bill bissett. you can see the bissett dirty concrete brush in action here. aleph null is sampling from 323 images (440 Mb) of bill's concrete and other poetry. it changes as it downloads images; whenever it draws a circle, it randomly chooses which bill poems to fill it with, and randomly chooses the size of the poems, and their position within the circle, and so on.

these screenshots were chosen with several criteria in mind. i wanted many of them to be eminently readable. bill bissett is a truly great poet. i respect his work immensely. i wanted these screenshots to be a unique and interesting way to read/view some of his poetry. use the space key to pause/play; use the arrow keys to go back/forward. secondly, i wanted the screenshots to layer beautifully—visually and conceptually. when i was creating them, i read this on the screen in one of bill's poems: "...sew sweetlee play th runnrs uv th palimsesting songs...". exactly! bill already layers his poetry—both the regular and also the concrete poems—in interesting ways visually and conceptually so that, as he says, it is already "palimsesting". i wanted to play along, but in a different way, in these screenshots.

also, i wanted to show a wide range of the underlying poetry of bill in this series. the 323 images of bill's work that underly these screenshots are mainly from 300 photos i took of bill's work at sfu's contemporary literature collection, special collections and rare books. jamie reid wrote that sfu's is the most complete collection of the work from the 60s and 70s of bill's blewointment press (bill lived in vancouver, for the most part, during those years). i took a lot of pictures of blewointment work. but there's also lots from the intervening years—and from the last couple of years too—the most recent concrete by bill is of the variety that dominates the first 30 screenshots; it's composed of symbols like <{:}> and so on—very computer-age-oriented—also, they deal with shape/generation arising from small symmetries, and/or with shape arising from groupings/containers/cells; it's interestingly abstract poetry. it looks like 'code poetry' of a sort. mind you, it isn't far from some of bill's earlier concrete—except it's done on a computer, not a typewriter, and with a different symbol set; it looks very different, though. it has a strongly contemporary look.

i first met bill in the 80's when i was producing my literary radio show Fine Lines at CFUV-FM in victoria. bill was on the show several times. he also helped me get an apartment in victoria at cook and north park; his late daughter michelle was the land-lady. our circles have been intersecting for a long time.

thanks to bill for his full participation in this collaboration and permission to use images of his work. thanks also to to adeena karasick for her help in exploring bill's work/material. and to natalie funk for feedback on design matters. thanks also to tony power and the rest of the staff of the contemporary literature collection at sfu for their help.

the 200 screenshots are 1920x1080. They're best viewed on the largest screen you can put them on cuz the fine print, in this case, is interesting.