Dom Sylvester Houédard was a Benedictine monk and eminent theologian, but also a pioneer, in Britain, of concrete poetry, a poetic form in which the arrangement of words and letters in a pattern on the page relates to the meaning or emotional impact of the poem. Using concrete poetry as a kind of springboard Houédard developed a way of making more purely abstract or pictorial images with the typewriter keys directly onto typing paper.
This is one of a number of prints using more conventional media, such as letterpress or lithography. Some of these appear directly related to his 'typestracts', others, such as this one, appear more independent, but they all have a somewhat different visual impact from the typewritten pieces. This is one of six sheets of translucent paper, overlaid, each printed with a different word, in a different position on the page so that they read collectively as a poem; the words show through the paper but progressively faintly as the number of layers increases.