1.11 Poetry in ideocalligraphy

How does a poem in ideocalligraphy begin? Perhaps a momentary reflection prompts the inner speech leading to a scribbled line of evocative radical and composite ideocalligraphs. One of them stands out as a focal point. The ideocalligraphy, enlivened by variations in size, stroke-width and balance, may settle into that linear format.

Should it call for more space, free of the line, further ideocalligraphs can be clustered near those which prompt them, offering additional depth and context to the meaning flow. Some may need their own space and could be intentionally distanced, floating free or as part of an emerging landscape setting. Still held by the meaning flow, they act as guiding afterthoughts when found. The need for a new layout on a fresh sheet of A4 may well present itself. Ideocalligraphs are not static elements and they show where else they might like to go.

So far we have created a wordless ideocalligraphic evocation of inner speech. In context, or when embedded in compound forms, each ideocalligraph's meaning is multi-faceted. At some point, with all the implications of the ideocalligraphic combinations present to the eye, a change occurs. It has become clear that this content calls for a balanced presentation in seamless ideocalligraphy. There must be a flow - like the water over rocks and moss in a mountain stream. It may take ten drafts but the moment will come when you have it.

You look at what you have done and realize that it is now more than a 'nota bene' or a 'prompt' to return to later. What you have in front of you is an ideocalligraph poem.

PAINTING AN IDEOCALLIGRAPH POEM

One choice is to write out the ideocalligraphy in scroll form, ink on paper, with rods above and below.

Alternatively, as I did in January 2015 (see illustrations), you can take a length of fine, closely woven, Estonian linen. Lay it out on the prepared table and choose the powdered tempera colours you need. Select your brushes and half-fill two jars with water. One is for rinsing brushes. From the other you can lift a Japanese brush-full of clean water and judiciously add from its tip the drops you need to a mix of colour and tempera medium. (The medium is home-made, following the recipe of the Beuron monks). Now you are ready to paint with ideocalligraphy a wordless poem from your inner speech.

On each new surface the ideocalligraphy may change, as in this case from paper to linen. It aquires a simpler and yet telling balance, responding to its new landscape context and the effect of colour. Colour enables subtle visual correlations.

The same poem, applied to an external or internal wall - of concrete, plaster or wood - will in each case show changes of spacing, texture, colour, ideocalligraphic style and shading. The poem will be, one way or another, different.

To the left, a discrete column of ideocalligraphs suggests that the poem may be found in the mind of the 'man' ideocalligraph seated under the apple tree: in his thoughts as they follow the bird towards that point where the track turns out of sight into the foothills of the distant mountain - the poem continuing there, out of sight.

Who is the poet? There are as many poets as there are readers. What the ideocalligrapher has made visible is, for him, his poem. Over the days and years his own reading of it may in fact change. And what the reader standing before it assimilates into his inner speech becomes his poem - to take away with him.