VISION AND PRAYER

-DYLAN THOMAS

Who
Are you
Who is born
In the next room
So loud to my own
That I can hear the womb
Opening and the dark run
Over the ghost and the dropped son
Behind the wall thin as a wren's bone?
In the birth bloody room unknown
To the burn and turn of time
And the heart print of man
Bows no baptism
But dark alone
Blessing on
The wild
Child.

The poem is interesting because despite the form by which it was written, it still
manages to have its own rhyme scheme. The poem also used only two punctuation
marks despite the end of thought of the lines. This makes it difficult to understand upon
first glance because of the enjambment. One has to re-read the poem and pause at
appropriate times in order to decipher the meaning.

The imagery it depicts is that of a new born questioning his existence hence the
vision and the man asking for blessing in his life hence the prayer. This poem used the
form of a diamond yet a diamond is the hardest substance known on earth while a
new born is a vulnerable being. The thin wall may represent the transition of life of the
new born upon his birth. There is a contrast between the form used and the image it
portrays.

The poem may also mean the birth of a new person who is hardened by the
hardships of life. The man may had undergone a life where many physical, mental and
domestic problems which plagued him for years which made him see only darkness.
And that the prayer is coming from someone who wishes goodness on the man. The
writer may have used diamond as an image to represent the heart of the man who lost
his soul. It may also be that from his second birth, his eyes now see the world differently
such that there is now a thin wall separating both worlds.

There are a lot of interpretations that may be had from this poem because of the
ambiguities that plagues it. However, the distinctive meaning it represents is that of
birth.
 BACKGROUND OF CONCRETE POETRY:

Concrete poetry is a type of poetry that uses some sort of visual presentation to
enhance the effect of the poem on the reader. The visual layout of the poem need not
necessarily form a picture, although many concrete poems do.

Concrete poetry has its roots in works of literature coupled with, enhanced by, or
written as a series of images. Many medieval authors sought to couple poetry with
images (such as Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales), but the form was lost over time.
Baroque labyrinth poems used words as the lines in a maze, and the mazes
themselves would form intricate and often complex images. William Blakes
illuminated works sought to couple the words of poetry inextricably with the beautiful
engraved images on a page. When the Futurists began experimenting with poetic
forms in the early 1900s, concrete poetry was established as a distinct form, obvious in
works such as Tristan Tzaras Calligramme.

European artists Max Bill and yving Fahlstrm originated the term in the early
1950s, and its early methods were described in the Brazilian group Noigandres
manifesto Pilot Plan for Concrete Poetry. During this period, concrete poems were
intended to be abstract and without allusion to an existing poem or identifiable shape.
An interest in ideogramsand the notion that words themselves could be ideograms
accompanied the typographical innovations developed by these artists and by such
visual writers as E. E. Cummings and Ezra Pound.

As the movement spread across the continents, reaching the height of its
popularity in the 1960s, concrete poetry became less abstract and was adopted by
many conventional poets as a specific poetic form rather than a combination of
literature and visual art. In response, some artists adopted the term poesia visiva to
describe more experimental fusions of word and image. As with much visual art,
concrete poetry and poesia visiva now use photography, film, and even soundscapes
in combination with letters and words to achieve new and startling effects.

In essence, works of concrete poetry are as much pieces of visual art made with
words as they are poems. Were one to hear a piece of concrete poetry read aloud, a
substantial amount of its effect would be lost.