Fyi

In FYI: For Your Information, we find a poet with the adventurous curiosity of a child turned loose with vocabulary and the architecture of words. Blackwell’s lexicological and etymological explorations to confine his usage and conform to an initialism may at first feel like a rap song’s lyrics. The words immediately convey a distinct rhythm, and the reader is compelled to peel back the layers and reveal a poignant statement about the initialism that titles the piece.

With a complexity that would be overwhelming to a nonreader, the style of Grant H. Blackwell’s verse becomes like a bucket of popcorn to the word junkie. One line leads to another and another and another. The reader is propelled forward, and the result is an elegantly revealed idea, emotion, in a poetic story.

What if each piece in a poetry collection was titled a three letter initialism? And what if each three letter work was composed only of words starting with the letters of that particular initialism in a repeating pattern from beginning to end? What if this compound alliteration was used to describe the title or an aspect of the initialism’s essence? And what if every letter was used in the collection without repeating a word?

For Your Information: Rhetorical Word Sculpture began with these what ifs evolving to a self questioning challenge of, What if this isn’t possible? And as most of Blackwell’s art begins with the varying question of possibility, it was reaction to these restrictions that gave FYI voice.

Completing the entire manuscript without repeating words meant FYI would be unabridged and even slang. Introduction of foreign language, including dead language, was done to increase his word base and utilize concepts without English translation. Usage of historical events and terms, another reaction to the restriction imposed on FYI, further enriched the word base with ideas, objects, and people no longer referred to, or not in the same way.