Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944), founder of the Futurist movement, wrote this shaped poem, translated as “Tethered Turkish Balloon,” one of nine broadsides printed at the Arion Press currently on exhibit in “The Shape of Poetry”

I chose this broadside made by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti as my example of total immersion because I felt it fit the description made by Kyle Schlesinger. What stood out to me were all the different orientations of the words. He chose the three words in the largest font and warped them into a circle creating a main point of focus on the broadside. Other words and phrases are coming out of this circle design and it repeats on these words as well. All the words combined as a whole make a visual image from the text. Schlesinger described total immersion as “the text is an image and the image is a text” and this helped me narrow down the broadside to use for an example. Although the author’s identity is clearly stated, the main text would be unclear without an explanation or description. The format of this broadside defies the traditional roles of a poster. Reading from left to right is difficult to do in this example and I am unsure is if some of these words are real words or just exaggerated for the visual look the creator was going for. It is clear by the size of the words and their placements which order Marinetti wanted his viewers to read his broadside. First my eyes see the text/image on the center of the page, and then to his name at the top which makes me also notice the black lines that separate all the text on the page. After that I finally noticed the small print on the very bottom. The confusing layout and unknown words make this broadside scream total immersion.

These two examples show how paper choice is an effective part of these letters/broadside. When I saw these in the exhibit it gave me some inspiration for my broadside. I like the way the typewriter typeface looks in the image on the right but I like the composition and layout of the type on the picture on the left. The distressed look of the paper gives it a sense of character and makes it look like a well loved letter which is a style I am sort of aiming for. When I make my final broadside my goal is to find a unique way to combine both of these examples while making it work with my chosen text. Both of these examples, although they are different from each other, give off the same mailed letter look which I think is interesting.