Pattern Poem

Five Walls Gallery, Melbourne, 2026

Pattern Poem is an animated visual poem that explores the permutations of a matrix or net-like structure generated from the English palindromes ‘reifier’ and ‘deified’. The work is inspired by Dick Higgins's writing on the history of shaped visual poetry and by the metaphor of Indra's Net. Over eight cycles, the animation fills and empties the screen, as if breathing, each time beginning with simple linear and diamond formations before passing through forms suggestive of doors, columns, scrolls, DNA, butterflies, snowflakes, honeycomb, and woven tapestries. Intended to be both hypnotic and calming, the poem invites sustained contemplation of the relationship between text and textiles.

The animation can be viewed below. An earlier version was published in the journal Peripheries (2020) and can be seen here.

‘Pattern Poem’, animation, 13:10 duration

Documentation: Simon Strong

Special thanks to Ivan Sobianin for his help with the animation.