I never really thought about the underlying visual and emotional impacts text could have. That was until I read Chapter 3 of Langham’s The Economics of Attention ( http://www.rhetoricainc.com/eofa/e_of_a/index.html )  which showed me how much evolution text has gone through. I never explored the theory of text to that degree before, which made me undervalue the impact text has. I did not consider how the theory of kinetic text could tell a short, emotion-filled, story without sticking to the traditional linear way of how text “should” be written properly. It makes me wonder about metaphors, and puns. How they work together to create an underlying meaning that paints a picture into the recipients head. I thought that Lanham’s point on shape poetry created an interesting thesis for the power of text. He raises the question of why combine an abstract alphabetical signal with a visual image?

“we want to heal the pains of abstraction. We want to insert the text into the 3D physical world, to engrave it onto the 3D world of stuff, just as we do with tombstones and public monuments. We want to bring the world of literacy, and all that literacy brings with it, into the world of objects and of oral conversation”

Along with his example of the Lightbulb poem ( http://www.rhetoricainc.com/eofa/e_of_a/media/oldmazda.html ), Lanham explains that the effects that shape poetry has on us is that it blends text, and the effect that text has on us to make a visual pun. I never took the time to think about how text can have so many different ways of reading one thing. There are numerous textual theories that help mesh the abstract and concrete worlds. Langham’s readings made me contemplate hidden meanings behind certain poetry and narratives. It’s like the dream levels in the movie Inception, the more you understand the text, the deeper you can manipulate it to create hidden meanings.

P.S. If anybody could comment with the proper way to title my hyperlinks that would be greatly appreciated.  My computer skills are limited.