"Acrobats" by Ian Hamilton Findley - Shape Poem

Shape poetry or concrete poetry is s type of poetry where the shape of the image contributes as much to the meaning as its words. “Acrobats” is a piece of shape poetry created by one of its more prominent practitioners, Ian Hamilton Findley.

The piece is very simplistic and relies on only one word, repeated several times in a several ways. Since the letters are spaced out, there are numerous paths you can trace to form the word acrobats. The many different forms the word can take represents the many actions an acrobat would wake. Every path is just a different position. In fact, you could trace an entire routine by taking different paths through the letters.