The Integrative Object Image for Letters and Words as Derived from Poet Louis Zukofsky and Applied to My Work

As I understand it, Louis Zukofsky valued letters, words and poems as objects.

"In keeping with objectivist principles, "A" (Poem by Louis Zukofky) employs...unusual
typography...wordplay." http://www.enotes.com/poetry-criticism/zukofsky-louis

I thought the following excerpt from Louis Zukofsky's poem "A" was a good example of his
wordplay. The following excerpt is taken from Louis Zukofsky's "A" - seventh movement.

"They have no manes, out of airs, birds
of words, from me to them no singing gut.
For they have no eyes, for their legs are wood,
For their stomachs are logs with print on them,
Blood red, red lamps hang from necks or where necks could
Be necks, two legs stand A, four legs together M."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/objectivist_poets

As I was working on a drawing in my previously published article, Halloween Comes Early
to LAUSD Teachers, Part III, I made a mistake while forming the letter "l" in the word
"humiliation." If you click on one of the images, you'll see a witch stirring a big kettle
with words dripping down the pot. I was playing with the letter, and thinking of
Zukofsky's concept of letters as objects, and I turned the letter into a dark robed
figure with his head hanging down for my "l" in the word humiliation.

I was about to throw the paper away, when I thought, why do that? It seemed to me the little
figure added meaning and emotion to my theme. To me at least, it captured the sorrow,
shame and loneliness of public humiliation, and thusly, integrated more emotion into
my writing. From this I derived my name for the concept, Integrated Object Image for
letters and words.

It's through its connectiveness to the text that it differs, for example, from the illustrated
Or decorated letter often found in fine or antique books, which is usually an artistic
rending of the letter in my experience.

Also, while I interpret the application of the concept differently than Mr. Zukofsky, see
above excerpt, to my knowlege, I think our approaches are in ways similar. It seems
to me by going back at times to the basic building blocks of language one somehow
connects with the creative impulse. Playing with letters and words in that manner seemed
to put me into a more creative, connective frame of mind in which ideas flowed more freely
and helped bring up more original, fresh imagery. I noticed, too, that Mr. Zukofsky's
imagery is usually very imaginative and original.

Of course computer keyboards don't lend themselves to my sort of play with letters
and words, but the scanner does. While I was reading the Yahoo Source Book,
I wanted to use bullets but I didn't know how. The explanation was beyond me at this
point in my life as I am not a computer person. I need to think about that a little more.
However, again with my scanner, I was able to make jack-o--lantern bullets in one of my
images, in my article, Halloween Comes Early to LAUSD Teachers, Part II (see second image.)
Again, I felt this use of Object Image graphic helped integrate points made in a fun way,
frankly, in a subject that wasn't much fun.

As I was writing this article, I felt it should have an image to illustrate my ideas further.
Again, this image refers to my three part article, Halloween Comes Early to LAUSD Teachers.