In 2006 the Norwegian publishing house Samlaget published my most important work as a concrete poet: telefonkatalogdiktet (‘the telephone-book poem’). When reading (!) the telephone-book of Oslo, I had picked out about 1100 family names on a subjective, poetic basis. By ordering them after numbers of letters and syllables, I have created different structures and pictures. This was possible by the use of the font “Courier” that gives all letters the same space on the line, just like old typewriters did. This creates a connection not only to the old way of making concrete poetry, but also to pattern poetry.
Graphic design: Dimitri Kayiambakis and Ottar Ormstad
Articles:
Morgenbladet, 09.06.2006
Klassekampen, 10.04.2006
telefonkatalogdiktet is available on audiatur.no