CONCRETE CAT

“CONCRETE CAT”

- By Dorothy Charles

The poem “Concrete Cat” is the best example of “Concrete Cat” in which the poet uses the words as the visual things. Such a poem is devoid of emotions and ideas. In the present poem, the poet has depicted the picture of a cat in a action by shaping the words such as ‘ear’, ‘eye’, ‘mouth’, ‘tail’, ‘whisker’, etc. in the visible form. While going through this poem, the readers are made to feel that the poet has worked like the one who makes the concrete doll of a cat by assembling the readymade components such as ‘tail’, ‘stripe’ etc. into the form of a cat.

              In order to create the exact shape of ‘eye’, ‘mouth’ and ‘tail’ etc the poet used the words in a way that resembles the exact appearance of these things. This required the poet to capitalize ‘A’ in ‘ear’ and ‘U’ in ‘mouth’, and to use spaces between the letters in the words ‘tail’.

              For showing the cattiness of cat in action perhaps, the poet has used the word ‘mouse’ upside down. This suggests that the cat has just killed the mouse whose dead body is lying down behind it.

              Since the chief concern of the poem is to present the physical appearance of the cat having stripes all over the body, the word ‘stripe’ is repeatedly used for the exact representation of the striped cat. That can be the possible pun in the act’s middle strip.

              Discussion Q (1) since the poem is supposed to be the expression of poet’s emotions, feelings and attitudes of life. “Concrete Cat” cannot be considered a poem because it lacks all conventional elements of poetry.

CONCRETE CAT

              “Concrete Cat” is an experimental poem known as “Concrete Poem”. It is drawn by Dorothy Charles. A glimpse of this poem is sufficient to make the reader see the different between traditional poems and the concrete poem. Unlike the given poem, a traditional poem consists of ideas, emotions, feelings and attitudes of the poet towards life and society. Above all, the poet makes use of the figurative language with many literary devices such as alliteration, assonance, metre, metaphors, simile, symbols etc.

              "Concrete Cat" is not like traditional poems because it has included neither figurative language nor ides and emotions. It is a poem made for the eye. Hence the physical appearance of the cat is given the importance. As in other concrete poems, language is reduced to the level of the word. In addition to it, the words are used in a way that once can see the shape of a cat on the paper. For instance, the words such as 'ear', 'eye', 'mouth', 'whisker', 'tail', 'paw'. 'stripes', etc. are used in such a way that one sees the physical appearance of the things they stand for. In order to do so, the poet has rearranged the words in an untraditional manner. Capitalizing 'A' in ear, 'Y' in eye, and 'U', in mouth as well as using spaces between the letters in the word 'tail' indicate the attempts of the poet to create the picture of a cat.

              The given poem makes the readers perceive that the poet of such poems appears to be more an artist than a poet. The other details added in the poem such as the word 'mouse' in upside down position and the word 'dish' in one corner show the 'catness' in action. The pun in the cat's middle stripe is the only place where language aspires towards poetry and becomes figurative. If one is asked the question. Whether one calls such a work of art as poem, one tends to answer that it is a poem from the experimental point of view. Otherwise, one is quick to give the answer in the negative.

OOPS! HOW’S THAT AGAIN

OOPS! HOW’S THAT AGAIN

               “Oops! How’s that Again?” is a humorous essay about bloopers with a great deal of psychological information about such verbal errors. It is written by an American writer, Roger Rosenblatt. The essay deals with different types of errors and psychological causes from such errors and types of laughter.

              While illustrating the errors, the writer divides them into slips of the tongue, mistranslation, bloopers and spoonerism and faus pas. He cites number of examples for each type of the error committed by celebrities. A slip of the tongue refers to the verbal error which is relatively a minor error that takes place in course of conversation. He gives some of the instances when the great personalities like Nancy Regan, France’s Prime Minister Raymond Barre and Businessman Peter Balfour etc. committed such errors. As for mistranslation, the writer explains that such errors result when different expressions are translated from one language into another. For instance, the slogan “Come Alive with Pepsi” was translated in German as “Come Alive out of the Grave with Pepsi”. Germany’s President Heinrich Lubke is one more example as a person known to have committed this type of error. Bloopers are embarrassing errors made in public. The writer gives the example of Radio Announcer Harry who announced the name of Herbert Hoover as Heaver on the radio. Spoonerisms are the errors committed when the syllables of the words get replaced with one another.

              The writer presents the explanations given by psychologists and linguistics. Victoria From kin of the linguistics department at U.C.L.A. regards slips as clues about how the brain stores and articulates language. She believes that thought is placed by the brain into a grammatical framework before it is expressed. Freud removed the element of accident from language with his explanation of slips as being the result of the operations of unconscious wishes. A psychiatrist, Richard suggests that the incorrect words exist in associative chains with correct ones known as a kind of ‘dream pair’. Errors result when incorrect word is articulated Psychoanalyst Ludwig suggests that a slip of tongue involves the entire network of id, ego and superego.

              The writer points out different reasons for laughter at such mistakes. One of the reasons is that conventional discourse is so predictable and boring that any deviation comes as delightful relief. Another reason is our meanness. It makes us laugh to see the embarrassment of the miss peaker, similarly the most charitable and optimistic thoughts of the blunderer cause kindly laugh. For instance, Gerald Ford’s famous error in 1976 that Poland was not under Soviet domination showed his optimistic thought about Poland’s freedom in future and it caused a pleasant laugh. Sometimes the bizarre mistakes disclose a whole new world of logic and possibility. This also causes laughter which is the most interesting one. Finally there is sympathetic laugh that sees into the essential nature of a slip of the tongue with a perfect understanding.