Craig Cady appears in the archive across three installments. The thirty-seventh preserves two poems, experiment 4: the good ones and Gospel. The thirty-eighth preserves Proximity Meditation as two visual image panels and a text poem titled experiment 13: bright splat (red point, black dot). The fortieth records four “Experiments and Weirdo Typewriter Things”: Capitol Building, 11//WI, dedicated to AAron Kempley, Baghat #1, Baghat #2, and Mary #2. Their imported page retains the titles while the work bodies are absent. Together these appearances establish a sustained practice of serial experiment, visual composition, sound, spacing, and altered language.
experiment 4: the good ones
The earlier text uses compressed spelling, broken syntax, popular-media vocabulary, sexual language, fear, violence, and rapid tonal changes. Words seem pushed together or clipped apart. The poem’s verbal surface feels accelerated, with spelling carrying rhythm as strongly as punctuation.
This approach places Cady naturally within experimental poetry where orthography, speed, and collision become compositional materials. The page records speech-like pressure through visible distortion.
Gospel
Gospel creates a very different visual rhythm. Its lines move progressively across the page, using broad horizontal spacing to distribute a voice speaking about the Lord, mountains, fields, the ocean, clouds, and “metal birds.” The poem turns typography into movement.
Readers interested in poetic forms can follow how line placement becomes part of the utterance. The widening gaps slow the eye and make each phrase occupy a distinct spatial position.
Proximity Meditation
The thirty-eighth installment introduces Proximity Meditation through two archived images. Its surviving form is explicitly visual, giving Cady’s archive a second medium beyond text. The companion work, experiment 13: bright splat (red point, black dot), returns to compressed verbal play through hardtack, johnnycakes, records, periods, repeated phrases, and the final “click. click//”.
That combination connects with modern poetry attentive to the relation between visual design and verbal sound. Image, typography, punctuation, and spoken cadence share the same authorial field.
Experiments and Weirdo Typewriter Things
The fortieth installment explicitly names its group as four experiments and “weirdo typewriter things.” The surviving titles suggest a serial practice built from place, numbering, repeated project names, and mechanical writing culture. Baghat #1 and Baghat #2 form an obvious pair, while Mary #2 indicates another numbered sequence.
Within poetry, such project naming creates continuity across separate pieces. Numbers and repeated title stems let individual works belong to larger compositional systems.
Archive and recurrence
Cady’s three appearances create a strong chronological sequence. The thirty-seventh shows text and spatial typography. The thirty-eighth adds image-based composition. The fortieth records a four-work experimental group. The surviving evidence supports a literary portrait centered on recurrence, serial naming, visual arrangement, altered spelling, and the physical character of language.
Reading Craig Cady
Craig Cady’s archived corpus moves among broken diction, gospel cadence, page-space, visual panels, numbered experiments, and typewriter-oriented form. His work repeatedly makes the material surface of composition visible.
Within contemporary poetry, Cady’s archive offers a distinctive record of verbal and visual experiment. Three installments preserve a practice in which spelling, spacing, image, serial titles, punctuation, and sound continually reshape the reader’s encounter with language.