Form Poems by Caleb Crawford

FORM POEMS CALEB CRAWFORD

for Gamal

IntroducƟon Every poem, it is said, should inculcate a moral; and by this moral is the poe cal merit of the work to be adjudged… We have taken into our heads that to write a poem simply for the poem’s sake, and to acknowledge such to have been our design, would be to confess ourselves radically wan ng in true Poe c dignity and force: - but the simple fact is, that, would we but permit ourselves to look into our own souls, we should immediately there discover that under the sun there neither exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly dignified – more supremely noble than this very poem – this poem per se – this poem which is a poem and nothing more – this poem wri en solely for the poem’s sake. -Edgar Allen Poe, The Poe c Principle

The great gi of architecture is its ability to create worlds. We value architecture’s u lity, but we prize its ability to astonish. These drawings are a means of crea ng architecture. They have several names, for not one tle describes them: form poems, autodidac c drawings, useless drawings. They are useless in that they have no immediate u lity in the making of a building; they are autodidac c in that they are a means of self teaching; and they are poems in their desire to express, and seek to express an ineﬀable quality. As admi edly “useless” drawings, these drawings have no u lity in the making of buildings. Their object pointedly eschews any form of problem solving. They are selfish and personal. Yet as autodidac c drawings, they func on to self-educate. They are generators of an architectural language that ul mately infl uences built work and teaching. But as Poe indicates, these drawings, as Form Poems, do not seek to achieve a larger social good (unless, of course, we allow that the making of beau ful things is a social good). They are, for the most part, made solely for the drawing’s sake. In my own case, the process is more or less unvarying. I begin with the glimpse of a form, a kind of remote island, which will eventually be a story or a poem. I see the end and I see the beginning, but not what is in between. That is gradually revealed to me, when the stars or chance are propi ous. More than once, I have to retrace my steps by way of the shadows. I try to interfere as li le as possible in the evolu on of the work. I do not want it to be distorted by my opinions, which are the most trivial things about us. The no on of art as compromise is a simplifi ca on, for no one knows en rely what he is doing. -Jorge Luis Borges, Prologue to The Unending Rose. Translated by Alastair Reid

Borges describes a process that is recognizable to most that make. We have ideas that form in the mind that must be hammered out through tes ng using the tools at our disposal. In the case of the work collected here, it is drawing. The process involves becoming lost and discovering. The process requires erasure, itera on, labor. The process involves luck. The process of making, as Borges describes it, and as I see it, is much like the surrealist prac ce of automa c drawing. Though logical rules for the making of form are employed, o en there is no ra onal mo va on for a form’s presence. The movement of the pencil, the presence of a fi gure are the result of intui on and conjecture. There is a habit to making. The drawings herein are the product of a daily prac ce. The tles are the dates upon which they were drawn (year month day). As such they are akin to diary entries. There are gaps in the sequences as daily life overwhelms the crea ve discipline. Ideally, this would be a daily prac ce. Even so, there are over 400 drawings produced over the last 4 years. The work contained herein cons tutes a focus to explore, exploit, and poten ally exhaust a single medium. The format is a 6” square of paper and graphite. Recent experiments have been in other media in an a empt to challenge habit, but the core focus is simple. When asked why he didn’t explore color in his photographs, my brother replied “I haven’t begun to scratch the surface of black and white.” Centuries of graphite drawings indicate that the work herein barely begins to exhaust the possibili es. The word “poem” has its origins in ancient Greek as a term for something made, but usually in rela on to words: a fic on. The rela onship, therefore, between the poet and the architect in terms of what they do is a strong one. A poet is a “maker.” The architect makes. Both use a language (the poet: words; the architect: lines, tones, pixels, assemblies, construc ons) to call into existence that which is not there. There is, however, a class of fancies, of exquisite delicacy, which are not thoughts, and to which, as yet, I have found it absolutely impossible to adapt language. -Edgar Allen Poe, Marginalia

The aspira on is, if these drawings, these essays, these poems are any good at all, they exhibit an ineﬀable quality. They go beyond language and enter Poe’s class of fancies.

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