All of that tek informed the poetry I began to compose, from statistical sonnets to other compositions. I became Langtek (language technician) and began to play with language, with occupational jargons: psychologese, sociologese, medicalese, computerese. They were functional languages of an occupational constituency. This sublanguage was antithetical to the poetic as I understood poetry at the time – lyrical, metered, sensual, emotional. The font that was used was OCR (Optical Character Recognition), meaning that the poetry was machine-readable.

Then there is adminstrationese, bureaucratese, (bureaucrap), militarese, politicalese, that affect society at large. This is the tongue of deceit, manipulation, and power. It’s a bloodless language that spills blood. George Orwell put it well, “Political language … is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind … wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.”

During the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s, a carload of agents parked themselves outside the building that housed Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office with the intention of entering it and gathering compromising information. When questioned by lawyers, group members said they were there to conduct a “preliminary feasibility and vulnerability study.” In streetspeek they were “casing the joint.”

Later in the 1970s, there was an RCMP scandal, in which officers told a Royal Commission of Inquiry that they had conducted a “surreptitious entry intelligence probe,” aka b&e snoopery.

So my compoetriots, that is the post-nutritive disposal substance of male bovines, aka BS.

The first brick sonnet was constructed in Killaloe, Ontario, requiring drilling into the Canadian Shield. It was long and arduous to drill, but sufficient for the necessary rebar support. This sonnet was constructed of 14 bricks, each one similar in texture and colour. The rhyme scheme was to be found in their positional placement.

The rebar was set to true and left to cure overnight. This was the spine providing security to the sonnet. Each brick needed to contain three holes to enable the centrality of its placement. The bricks were laid out on the ground in their pattern to ensure the rhyme schemantra protocol was followed as each brick was positioned into its proper place. Cement was not used as a bonding agent. A special weatherproof glue was used to bond the bricks together.

The design was very similar to the Concrete Sonnet, except for the rhyming couplet, which was set at 45 degrees from the rest of the sonnet. That gave the sonnet, not only its rhyming couplet, but also the ‘twist’ in the brick narrative that made it a volta.

This sonnet made the front cover of the intergenre journal of eloquent gardeners and poets; Better Poems and Gardens. The concept spread across the textpansive Imagine Nation of the Peoples Republic of Poetry. Poets rejoiced at the prospect of garden gnomes being replaced with garden poems, from the prosaic to the poetic.

A few years passed, and another brick sonnet was commissioned for the front garden of the headquarters of the glorious Imagine Nation of the Peoples Republic of Poetry. By this time, the Sonnet Construction Company, located in Killaloe, Ontario, was established and commissioned for the task.

This sonnet was set out to establish its rhyme schemantra. The bricks were chosen on the basis of their size, colour and textuality. There was no clear volta, but the positioning of the bricks satisfied the criteria of a Shakespearean sonnet.

The lead construction agent of the Sonnet Construction Company dug a hole three feet into the earth. A Sano Tube was placed into the hole to provide the base. Cement was poured in, and the top was shaped to provide a slight slope for water runoff; this prevented the rebar from prematurely rusting and jeopardizing the structure.

When all was cured, Poetician1 of the glorious Imagine Nation of the Peoples Republic of Poetry laid the bricks in their rhyme schemantra, using the same weatherproof glue as was done to the sonnet in Killaloe, Ontario.

Finally, the sonnet was assembled and cured, ready for poets to visit the headquarters of the glorious Imagine Nation of the Peoples Republic of Poetry.

Poetician1 posed with the latest manifestation of lawn poetry in National Poetry Month, April.

One of the first poets to bless the sonnet was retired Ontario Superior Court Judge James Clarke, while he was on a mission to provide the glorious Imagine Nation of the Peoples Republic of Poetry with the latest release of one of his many books of poetry.

The sonnet is well over ten years old and has endured many weather events. Just a few more pics of this well-celebrated Brick Sonnet.

National Poetry Month, April 15, 2015.

Concrete. That’s conceptual concrete, so it was time to apply physical concrete to a poetic structure, a Shakespearean sonnet. It was August 31, 1974, the Creative Intelligence Anarchy, conceived of a world first and only, a 3D stand-alone sonnet in the backyard at (247) K9A 1L7.

It was an eureka moment. “Let’s construct a concrete sonnet,” I said to the Minister of Texternal Affairs. So off we went to purchase 15 cinder blocks. The extra block was to fill the hole in the ground and to provide a level surface for the remaining 14 blocks.

Sonnets are composed from the top down, but in this case, it was formed from the bottom up – a case of re-verse for sure that led to a fortunate flaw that sub-versed the project. A minimal use of cement between the blocks held it together. It was a weekend project, not a permanent fixture. There was no rebar to hold it together. It was constructed for a photo op.

A Shakespearean Sonnet it is not. The rhyme schemantra became obvious once the photos were examined. It was from top to bottom ABABCDCDEFEFBB. That stands for booboo. Nevertheless, it was a prototype that led to other permutations of the glorious form.

Let’s begin with coloured wooden blocks to textpress the child’s play with which this sonnet form can be implemented. This is a basic Shakespearean sonnet, the word RAINBOW with seven letters doubled to 14 stacked one atop the other in the Shakespearean rhyme schemantra.

Another textample of child’s play is the HEXADECIMAL SONNET. The sonnet content reflects computer machine language, zeros and ones. Many recall the days when computers restricted file names to eight characters. These were the building blocks of computer communications.

Let’s switch to the more adult Scrabble letter tiles, which serve as vehicles for the letters to assemble words into a Shakespearean sonnet. The example below, The Leaning Sonnet of Data, consists of the necessary elements (binary) in computer code conceptualization that delivers data. That is the ‘narrative’ of this poem with the volta being DATA DATA.

The CIA dropped the use of words and letters to textpress the Sonnet concept to objects. The example below, Poetician1 holds SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET BY CHANCE, a sonnet constructed of common dice. We all note that dice have six numbers, six sides, which does not complete a sonnet, which requires seven elements. That issue was solved by turning the horizontal six to a vertical six for the rhyming couplet, and perfectly achieving the volta, the twist in the narrative of the sonnet. Textceedingly clever.

The nimbleness of a textpansive Imagine Nation informed by the works of Conceptual Arts results in new configurations of an Elizabethan poetic form. The CIA gambled on a deck of cards and won. Several configurations were brought forth; only the best with a volta was chosen. The VERY FULL HOUSE, JOKERS WILD.

Receiving an honourable mention is A GIRL’S BEST ROYAL FLUSH.

Part 3 next when the sonnet goes full 3D.

The following rhyme scheme distinguishes it.

A

B

A

B

C

D

C

D

E

F

E

F

G

G

14 lines requiring 7 items to rhyme. Easy peasy. StatsCan provided the data. Gender genre seemed the simplest way to divide data; seven elements for males, seven for females. Suicide stats seemed a suitable subject to demonstrate the formula. The data was segmented into year groups, producing seven segments: years 1 to 14, 15 to 19, 20 to 24, 25 to 44, 45 to 64, 65 to over, and all ages combined for the rhyming couplet.

The formula and data were poured into a spreadsheet program. It was formatted into a vertical graph; viola, a statistical-based sonnet.

The sonnets were published in the University of Toronto Review.

The CIA wanted more challenge, so it complicated things a bit more by leaving ascii-land. What else has seven components, especially in everyday life, everywhere? Days of the week, of course. Everywhere meant multiple languages, so seven major tongues were applied to the rhyme schemantra of a Shakespearean sonnet. Viola! A multilingual weekly sonnet.

The CIA jacked up the complexity of this schemantra with colours, the visible spectrum of a rainbow. Notice that the word ‘RAINBOW’ has seven letters. Let’s represent the colours with the word for each colour. There are three primary colours (red, blue, yellow) and three secondary colours (orange, green, purple). Oh, oh, that leaves the sonnet one colour short of seven. Obviously, we’re not playing with a full deck yet.

Enter cleverness, a major manufracturing process of the CIA. What is white? The presence of all colours. What is black? The absence of all colours. Hmmmm. How to apply? There is a column of words; each word in the colour of its meaning, ending with the word WHITE. This will require black as the backdrop to make the white word visible. So far, so good. This column of words worked.

Clever demanded that the word, RAINBOW, also become a column, better yet, let this column bracket the central column. Maintain the colour schemantra until the last letter of the word, W, representing black. Hmmm, this will require the backdrop of these two columns to be white, which makes the black word visible. OK, let’s do it. Done.

This is a ++sonnet. Why? Because it displays the ‘volta’, the magic of a truly and fully workable sonnet. The volta (Italian for “turn”) in a Shakespearean sonnet is the pivotal, rhetorical or thematic shift—a change in thought, argument, tone, perspective, or emotional direction—that gives the poem its dramatic tension and resolution.

This happens when the rhyming couplet delivers a twist, summary, ironic comment, epigrammatic punch, or conclusive insight. It prevents the poem from being a simple description or complaint; instead, it introduces contrast, reversal, or revelation, making the sonnet dynamic and intellectually satisfying. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 is a prime example of how a volta works. So too, the Rainbow Sonnet.

It was billed as the “first safe landing of the Peoples Republic of Poetry.” It was April, 1972. It was a polymedia poetry performance held in the lecture hall of Loyalist College of Applied Arts and Technology in Belleville, Ontario.

A stage hand wheeled a large tape machine onto the stage. Out walked the Dipoematic Ambassador of the Glorious Imagine Nation of the Peoples Republic of Poetry, dressed in a white tuxedo. “Welcome to the first safe landing of the Peoples Republic of Poetry. Our purpose on Earth is to prepare the people for the advent of technocrazy.”

The dipoemat pushed a button; the machine ran the tape, a screen lowered from the ceiling, and presented imagery consistent with the text being performed. The audio performance was pre-prepared and various studio effects modified the voice. The 20-minute show was totally automated

The lights came up. The Poet was nowhere to be seen. The Machine started up again and invited the audience to ask questions. What was the poetocol to asking a machine a question? In 1972? No one asked. The invitation was again requested – nothing. Assistants removed The Machine.

The literary crème de la crème from McGill came to watch; Poet Louis Dudek, Dr Alec Lucas, head of the English Dept who were instrumental in launching my first book of poetry, Walking On the Greenhouse Roof. They were highly disappointed that I had subsumed poetry to The Machine performance. The students felt otherwise.

This was the first manifestation of the Peoples Republic of Poetry. This divide caused some troubling considerations. I was young and inexperienced in the circles and triangles of the poetry community. I did not consider myself to be abandoning poetry; indeed, every action going forward, I put poetry as central, in spite of the heavy use of technology.

I billed myself as LANGTEK (Language Technician) and continued to send poems to Canada’s literary journals. Sometimes I would bill it with a PRP Dept, Ministry of Textraordinary Affairs, or Creative Intelligence Agency or Federal Bureau of Inspiration. The poetry was still ‘regular’ except for my various pseudonyms. For the next 15 years, everything published was via my Single Identifying Number, known in Canada as a Social Insurance Number. ”Wally Keeler” soon disappeared from the scene. My SIN was my avatar, indeed, the entire apparatus of the Peoples Republic of Poetry became my avatar.

The ‘regular’ poetry gradually morphed into ‘computerized’ poetry, not composed by a computer, but by me instructing The Machine what to do. This led me to ransacking Stats Canada for data to process.

This is a continuation of policy relating to the glorious Imagine Nation of the Peoples Republic of Poetry. It is about the use of text aka txt. Nuspeek. Of course, there is the reference to Orwell’s 1984, written in the late 1940s reflecting the tek of the day. So how did it come to this: nuspeek?

1971-72 I attended Loyalist College of Applied Arts and Technology for the Communications Arts courses, video production, radio, photography, journalism. I was editor of the College newspaper. For a reason that escapes me, I also signed up for data processing, which was outside the Communications Arts course, but was part of the Business Courses.

My data processing teacher was Charles Kinghorn, and get a load of this, we have kept in touch with each other for the past 50+ years. On my first class, he did the usual, asked each student who they were and why they chose data processing. The entire class was composed of business students and then there was me, Poetician1.

This course taught me how to code back in the days of mainframe exclusivity, COBOL/FORTRAN. The course brought me up close to those heavily air conditioned rooms that housed the glorious mainframe. The smell of electricity filled the room, the smell of energy, the scent of machine calculation, and a constant low level ummmmmmm, all for a burst of binary blasts of ordered info.

I had no interest in becoming a coder for computers, although it was very helpful in my gaining employment. I was interested in its place in culture creation. My interest was in artistic poetic applications at the speed of bright light. Little did I know then that computers would have such a saturating influence in our society.

“Whois” was one of the many words. I noticed when coding; language was reduced to a minimum, mostly by the removal of vowels. I began to emulate that composition in my poetry. I was texting before texting became a thing during the mid-90s when the internet began to spread and the concept of texting infected the general public.

Texting was one aspect. The other was OCR (optical character recognition), machine readable. The PRP used IBM’s OCR FONT; THRUOUT TH 1970’S EVRYTHNG THT TH GLORIUS PEOPLS RPUBLIC OF POETRY PBLISHD WAS MOSTLY OCR TXTD. ITALICS WERE USD 4 THOS PORTNS OF TXT THAT CLD’T B OCR’D; place names, and quotes, anything personal or human.

NUSPEEK IS NOSPEEK

GOING 4WARD TH TXT WAS APLYD 2 COMPUTR PRNTOUT PAPR. THIS EMULATN WAS XCEDNGLY XACTNG. IT HAD 2B DUN ON AN IBM SELECTRIC WTH VARIUS FONT BALLS; OCR, Times New Roman italics. TH PAPR HAD 2B NSERTD N2 TH SELECTRIC PRFECTLY 2 ENABL TH TXT 2 MAINTAIN A PRFECT LEFTHAND MARGIN. THIS HAD 2B MAINTAIND EVEN IF TH TXT WAS 3 PAGS LONG. ALSO, NO WHITOUT OR ANY OTHR CORECTN WAS PERMITD, WHCH MAD TH PRODUCTN A 1-LETR-@-A-TYM, ERR-FREE, JUST LIK A REEL COMPUTR PRNTOUT.

NUTHINK IS NOTHINK

The notion was to make the poetic documents so immaculate and elegant that no one could know that they had been composed by hand, but truly believed it was computer-composed. When these documents were first published in various literary journals, the response was just what I wanted – belief that it was composed by a mainframe. The curator of the University of Manitoba Gallery was shocked to learn that each document had been done “by hand”.

Poetry and computers; what a blend. At the time, I was inquiring about ‘computer poetry’ and there was a bit of it around. It was awful; first because programmers are not poets but fancied themselves, second, because the programmers used randomizer algorithms for their compositions. They also included the basic rules of English; verbs, adverbs, nouns, adjectives, and all kinds of other grammatical rules. The results were yechspeek. There was no human intervention post-printout. The mistake by the programmers was the notion that algorithms can create comprehensive composition.

What the PRP had presented was impossible for computers to accomplish at the time. That was the mainframe 70s. Fast forward to the mid-nineties when the internet began to prevail, and personal computers began to develop the ability to present itself in the same manner as I had done during the 1970s.

That’s it for now. Stay tuned for the next missive which will explain the computational assembly of Shakespearean sonnets. In the meantime, below is one example of a ‘printout’ that displays the mix of OCR & italics. This document was also the first time there was any mention of the PRP. “What if a poet were the premier of something?” NJOY!

In Ancient Poeman rhymes, poets referred to the Greek or Roman Gods -- their jealousies, rages, loves, and lives. Those Gods were the metaphors/analogs of the age. Then came the monotheistic Gods, and poets referred to them, their prophets and angels, chapter and verse. In the post-modern age, the great agents of influence are governments; the state decrees, declares, censures, provides, enforces, educates, prevails. The PRP chromes the characteristics of state, wielding satire and poetic justice to reflect and deflect.

This required the formulation of policy.

The PRP was launched with a Coat of Arms, doubling as its flag, crafted from gleaming chrome mylar. Shaped like a vintage television cathode ray tube, The Coat of Arms emulates the greyscale test pattern that marked the start of broadcast television during the b&w analog era. At its center, it features a 1970s mainframe computer tape reel, subtly echoing both the radioactive symbol and the peace sign.

Chrome was selected as the imagine national ‘colour’ because it reflects all colours within its surroundings, embodying inclusivity. It chameleons environmental change in real time. Chrome’s shallow sheen appropoetically reflects the times, tastes and spaces in which we live.

The Poetburo requested that the Poetariet wear ‘white clothing’ at artofficial poetic events. Chrome and white. Video cameras in the 70s were uber sensitive to light. Well duh! Pointing the lens at the sun or other bright light caused burns on the camera’s photoconductive target layer. Surveillance cameras are largely stationary -- they can be blinded by shining a bright light into their lens. Chrome and white cause flares and make it difficult to maintain focus. The motive was to interfere with the State’s surveillance ability to video/photo a public event accurately and completely. The PRP regards the news media as an adjunct to the State. The PRP provided its own photographers and videographers to document and possess the clearest, complete record of its events.

The policy of the PRP instructs the Poetariet to reply to all queries from any media not controlled by the PRP by replying, “I am at liberty not to say”. It is a re-verse, in-verse of the perverse, “I am not at liberty to say” which is how the State gags itself from self-textposure. This impasse requires the media to describe to their viewers what they witnessed in their own words. Invariably the media make stuff up or fake stuff up.

The PRP provided film and videotape to Units of Verse from the Unitverse of the Poetariet for documentation and poetic justice. This was consistent with the policy of LITTLE BROTHER WATCHES BACK. While the PRP self-reflects its actions, it deflects the actions of foreign media.

In accordance with the sub-policy of FAKE MUSE IS VERSE THAN FAKE NEWS, the PRP does not always disavow fake news, but textploits it to spin yarns that authenticate The Narrative of the PRP’s poetpetual struggle against mediocrity and the textcesses and textaggerations of the state. The policy of LITTLE BROTHER WATCHES BACK sub-verses state narratives by in-versing the clone&cliche@deepsix.gov. This, combined with white clothing and chrome flares, spins their narrative out of control. By saying that “I am at liberty not to say,” the news media have nothing to hang their narrative on, so they have to make something up, and invariably, it is mediocre. The Poetariat are units of verse of the Unitverse.

For example, Poetician1 was giving an Impress Release at York University’s tv studio. Poetician1 wore a white suit with a chrome faceless shield. Poetician1 stood behind a chrome lectern. The tv crew attempted to spray the chrome to reduce glare but were prevented from doing so. They were forbidden to alter the characteristics of the PRP. They would have to deal with the flare and glare with their own technology. Poetician1 would turn their head right or left or a bit upward, and the camera was full of flares from tv studio lights, and the reporters reflected in the chrome lectern distorted in and out of focus as they moved. It was a nightmare for the recording studio, but a successful textperiment for the PRP.

The ’chrome faceless shield’ is made of chrome mylar. It has various densities to suit various environments. The chrome faceless shield has the same characteristics as mirrored sunglasses. The wearer can see through the ‘shield’, enabling the wearer to be both public and private simultaneously. It protects the security of the Poetariet when they poeticipate in public poetic events. It foils facial identity cameras. The whole world’s a stage has been upgraded to the whole world’s a studio and we are but momentary pixels.

Chrome placards shaped like computer datacards were developed by the Creative Intelligence Anarchy in collaboration with the Federal Bureau of Inspiration. Many contained multilingual poetic slogans. Chrome placards served the purpose of reflecting sunlight into the lens of all surveillance and news media cameras, thereby re-versing their ability to obtain a record.

There is more to white clothing than just causing video interference. White and chrome projects a gleaming, clean, cool, cold image of technology. White is nerdwear for technologists, technicians, clinicians, and units of verse of the unitverse. All units of verse of the unitverse identify with their namber (name+number) aka SIN, Single Identifying Number. By their sins ye shall know them, and by digital id all your sins will be known in pixels perpoetually.

That’s quite a bit for now. Some policies were developed or altered in accordance with the evolution of communications technology and the creativity of the Imagine Nation of the glorious Peoples’ Republic of Poetry powered by verbs since words were tongued.

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Ok, so lets get started. That has been the problem. I want to begin right at the beginning. The beginning of the story that I have been writing out of since 1972. That’s like the previous century, no, it’s the previous millennia for Data’s sake.

I was attending Loyalist College of Arts and Technology, Communications Arts course in Belleville. I took script writing, radio production, journalism, video production, photography, and data processing, which was outside the course. (I also took a couple semesters of sociology and psychology, which was a horror and made me sick.)

The technology began to inform the way I began to perceive the world. It also began to inform my poetry. I began to write ‘prose-poetry’. I wrote several pieces, one of them was in the form of a spontaneous computer printout. In idiomspeak, it’s called the Politics of Spring.

It was in this piece that I asked questions. “If a poet were the Premier of something . . .” It was shortly after this that I began to conceive of the glorious Imagine Nation of the Peoples Republic of Poetry.

The font is OCR (Optical Character Recognition), machine readable back in olden times. Vowels were removed for efficiency’s sake. Italics was the organic language. This document was hand-made on an IBM Selectric one letter at a time. The page had to be fed into the Selectric precisely so that there was no ‘slant’ showing on the lefthand margin. White-out or back-up were disallowed, so that meant many remakes until it was perfect, that it gave every appearance of being a legit computer printout.