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Daily Notes on Poetry & Related Matters
20 September 2005: Geof Huth has come through with another great entry on vispo in his blog entry for yesterday that I can steal a paragraph and an illustration from for use here:

One of the greatest pre-concrete poems ever is Eustorg de Beaulieu�s �Gloire � dieu seul,� which is a simple but effective grid-based poem. Like the other great European pattern poem, George Herbert�s �Easter Wings,� this is a religious poem. This poem reads from the inside out, in waves, producing an almost hypnotic effect on the reader. Yet its text is ultimately simple: repetitions of �Glory to God alone.� With this poem, we see that over 400 years before the concrete poets, people were creating beautiful �concrete� poems.
 

l u e s u e i d i e u s e u l
u e s u e i d a d i e u s e u
e s u e i d a e a d i e u s e
s u e i d a e r e a d i e u s
u e i d a e r i r e a d i e u
e i d a e r i o i r e a d i e
i d a e r i o l o i r e a d i
d a e r i o l G l o i r e a d
i d a e r i o l o i r e a d i
e i d a e r i o i r e a d i e
u e i d a e r i r e a d i e u
s u e i d a e r e a d i e u s
e s u e i d a e a d i e u s e
u e s u e i d a d i e u s e u
 l u e s u e i d i e u s e u l 

Eustorg de Beaulieu�s
 �Gloire � dieu seul�
 (�Glory to God alone�) (1537)
I agree entirely with the above. Elsewhere in his entry, though, Geof seems to consider the above a pattern poem (as well as a concrete poem). Here I disagree with him. The huge difference between what I'd call true pattern poems and concrete poems is that texts of the former are poems, but the texts of the latter (generally speaking) are not. I think minimalization of a text and disregard of standard syntax is what distinguishes a concrete poem from a pattern poem. But my thinking on this is in flux.

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