see previous….

Font key here

See previous for font ‘key’

Some years ago I had what seemed an original and exciting idea for experimental writing: poems based on and written in the name/style of their unique fonts. These fonts were mainly [if not all] designed by individuals and supplied online, rather than being a part of, for example, Word fonts provided as a software package and selection.

It didn’t work. The main reason is the poems I wrote weren’t overall good enough. Naff in many cases, or just too literal – though perhaps that means the same thing.

But a few worked, it seemed to me, and some of these survive and exist elsewhere as poems, but in a conventional font.

I’m going to post of few of these in their original, unique fonts over the next few days. The idea was a resultant collection/booklet would have an index with the fonts named and written in their style so the reader would have to match to a subsequent poem to anchor the meaning. Anyone wanting to play that game with these few poems can do so. But first the title and cover of the book that never was:

Index:

First poem:

Combining my enduring nostalgia with a present immersion in writing found poems, I have quite by chance today come across the first cut-up poem I ever wrote, probably around 1968-69 when I was 15 years old.

Bob and I each wrote a poem about a cat, one black and one white, and I can’t recall who wrote which. The rest is as you can now see:

Very pleased to have the support of X-Peri for my writing project Novel Finds. You can read here

An innovative new social ‘image only’ media site set up online specifically to receive and post images of President Donald Trump in – as the site specifies – naturally acquired [no photo-shopped or otherwise digitally manipulated/altered images] of dumb-looking, gormless, weird, obtuse and similar facial captures, crashed today when it received more than a million submissions per minute from around the globe.

The creator and owner of dumbtrumppics.com, Tay King Thepess, explained to the world’s media how he and a small team launched his site on the back of their opening day Special Event only to have this dream introduction shattered by the unexpected immediate popularity and resultant colossal global digital traffic,

I had no idea it would be this popular. Instantly! We’d customised our search engine marketing based on local usages and adapted the social media element for various languages and Boom – the whole idea ignited and blew up in our faces. Or in Trump’s face, to be precise!

Asked if the site would be re-opened, Thepess commented further,

Yes, but under a new name and with a far less appealing Special Event launch, if that doesn’t sound too counter-entrepreneurial! It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it was too phenomenal as an advertising and marketing notion. Someone in the team suggested the new site name of ‘nicetrumppics.com’ and linked launch but for so many obvious reasons that wasn’t going to be a suitable alternative. We’re currently thinking of something to do with people’s lookalike pets – but not ones that resemble Trump!

Amid reports of a surge in sales of Orwell’s 1984 in response to the Trump administration promotion of ‘alternative facts’, I wonder if this will have increased hugely in value [obviously not in the league of a first edition copy of the book itself]? Enough to purchase an escape pod…..?

Who would have thought my book of a year ago would have a predictive title for subsequent events here in GB and the USA?!