celestial alphabet event...

"an extreme example of a language process event based on natural phenomena, this derives from hebrew alphabetic practice projected on the night sky. the key is calligraphic: a form of the alphabet ("magic letters") going back to the hellenistic period, in which the lines of the letters culminate in rounded points, permitting a later application to the night sky, where patterns of stars (points joined by "lines") can then be read as letters, groups of letters read as words, etc. in the process the sky becomes a massive concrete poem, whose words or "messages" are constantly transforming. the instance, above, is from jacques gaffarel, a christian kabbalist of the 17th century, but the viability of the process is dependent upon the hebrew alphabet, where the absence of explicit vowels allows a wide range of meaningful readings"

jerome rothenberg, "after the shamans" a mini-anthology of jewish oral and process poetry in an age of writing, from alcheringa magazine 1975.

gomringer's constellations...

of all poetic structures based upon the word, the constellation is the simplest. it disposes its groups of words as if they were clusters of stars.

the constellation is a system, it is also a playground with definite boundaries. the poet sets it all up. he designs the play-ground as a field-of-force & suggests its possible workings. the reader, the new reader, accepts it in the spirit of play, then plays with it.

with each constellation something new comes into the world. each constellation is a reality in itself & not a poem about some other thing.

the constellation is a challenge, it is also an invitation.

eugene gomringer, constellations, 1963 (translation by jerome rothenberg, 1967, something else press.)