concrete imagery

No, I’m afraid it’s not a post about problems with abstractions in poetry, although that’s a subject dear to my heart. This is literally about images and concrete. Or, to be more precise, images and cement.

empty cement sack
Just the facts
I used to think cement was a fairly uninspiring grey powder that came in tough brown paper sacks with nothing of any interest written on them.

I imagined that the packaging was designed to appeal to no-nonsense men who deal in practical information like quality codes or weights and measures. A bit like the empty sack in the photo.

But then I caught sight of un saco de cemento with the slogan:

Tu salud está en tus manos.
Este cemento no provoca dermatitis alérgica.

and realised the subject was rather more complex.

How would you illustrate the packaging of a hypoallergenic cement?

cement sack
distracting, not abstract

With the picture of a woman, of course.

And not just any woman, but a scantily clad one; a woman wearing cut off denims, a crop top and a hard hat. Classy.

I hope no one is fooled into buying the stuff thinking the illustration is in any way indicative of the contents.

(Incidentally, the South American and English influences on my pronunciation are conspiring, and I am racking my brains to come up with a pun on cemento and semental. I suspect I’d be wise to abandon the attempt.)

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Author: don't confuse the narrator

Exploring the boundary between writer and narrator through first person poetry, prose and opinion

5 thoughts on “concrete imagery”

  1. I think the denims are rolled up, not cut off.

    Being completely immune to advertising, I assume I’ve bought these three hundredweight of cement for a good reason.

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      1. It looks a little like Carmen Miranda. Who’s Sandra Bullock?

        A hundredweight is more than a stone but less than a ton (not a tonne, whatever that is), of course. In my day you could buy a hundredweight of most things for about eight and fourpence three farthings.

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  2. Cemento and semnental – I think you´re on to something there. It reminds me of shopping for welding supplies in industrial Oakland, Calif. It was pretty intimidating to enter the shops, let alone ask for welding rod with all those burly men standing around the service counter, behind which were tacked glossies of women in bikinis wielding tools. I always thought Health & Safety would have something to say about the risks of wearing such scanty attire when welding. At the tool shops it was the same. Semi-naked women bearing drills. Sometimes I thought I should show up that way and see if it got me better customer service.

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    1. Heh. There used to be a little boutique called “Rowena” in Bangor that sold power tools (no, it wasn’t me mis-reading “Rowenta”).
      I bet you’ve noticed that in the ferreterías here in Spain they try and pretend you – the woman – aren’t there if there are Real Men waiting in line.

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