Students often find the reading and writing of concrete poetry to be entertaining and accessible. A must-have gem for classroom poetry collections, Wet Cement will entertain, inspire, and captivate. It’s not just all graphic enjoyment, either, as the text of the poems offer fresh, inventive perspectives of everyday objects, such as a subway described as “A CITIFIED-JUST-SLIDE-INSIDE-AND-TAKE-A-RIDE ELECTRIC MOLE.” Stark pages, devoid of additional illustration, focus readers’ attention on Raczka’s word play and paintings. Meanwhile, the capital letters L and I in the title “Lightning” are tilted and connected to create a lightning bolt similar to the one formed by its accompanying poem. For example, each lowercase letter i in the title “Icicle” dangles upside-down, the dots emulating water dripping from icicle tips. Even the single-word titles of each poem are themselves concrete poems, with individual letters creatively and cleverly arranged. From the table of contents (shaped, of course, like a table) to the final verso copyright page (fashioned into one big copyright symbol), Raczka plays with shape, font, and position of text so that concrete poetry permeates the book.

What makes this anthology of concrete poems stand apart from others, though, is that Raczka also creates these paintings throughout the entire book. In Wet Cement, author Bob Raczka begins with a credo: “I like to think of poems as word paintings.” Indeed, the concrete poetry-also known as shape poetry-filling the pages of this brilliant collection not only paint images with what words say, but also with how those words appear on the page.

Wet cement a mix of concrete poems