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After reading the blurbs on the book jacket of fractal economies, a naïve reader might assume that beaulieu was forging a "new" poetics. More experienced readers (and those who read his afterword) will realize that the poet owes much to predecessors like Apollinaire, Nichol, bissett, etc. Where beaulieu has made a significant contribution to the tradition is in his innovative use of business machines and office supplies to revitalize the techniques of concrete poetics. He employs rub-on (Letraset) transfers, photocopiers, found material, hole-punches and frottage. Many pieces exhibit beaulieu's courting of the "glitch," or technical malfunction. He also adds sophistication to his project by modifying his approach within sequences of poems (patterns easier to detect than to characterize).

At their best, beaulieu's creations function at the level of a Rorschach ink blot - the reader can gain insight into his or her own emotions/thoughts by projecting onto a neutral image. At their worst, the sequences of similar poems don't easily yield the logic of their pattern and thus become merely repetitive. A couple of representative pieces are worth comment. "rpt" (pg. 31), which juxtaposes a whole letter P with other fragmented letters, offers a striking representation of how language is political, how it is used by the proficient to control/exclude the inept. "&/or" (pg. 42-3) was created using the technique of multi-generational photocopies, and the viewer can almost see new letters appearing amidst the carnage of the originals.

Upon arrival at fractal economies' cogent though sometimes challenging afterword, the reader may be disappointed to find that the things he or she liked most about the collection are illegitimate under its creator's dogma. beaulieu makes a compelling case for the need of a standardized and serious approach to the study of concrete poetry, and also for the abandoning of dismissive claims of the movement's infancy and/or marginality. In a polished prose style, he traces the history of concrete through some of its principal practitioners. To some readers, however, the lack of sufficient definition of esoteric terms like "rhizomatic" and "libidinal readings" (pg. 79) might be off-putting.

beaulieu goes on to argue that concrete poetry should "attempt to shatter the chain of signification" (pg. 80), should "overflo[w] the container of hegemony" (pg. 82). He strains to prove that concrete poetry, as a medium that confuses the capitalistic exchange of art, can be an untainted mode of "non-communication." By way of concession, he states that the stability of concrete poetry's instability is fleeting: "the best we can strive for are momentary eruptions of non-meaning which are then co-opted back into representation" (pg. 84). In other words, if you enjoy beaulieu's works because they suggest something about yourself or the world, then you're missing the point.

What beaulieu skirts is the fact that even non-meaning (however evanescent) is a type of meaning, either suggesting the instability of signification or the corrupting influence of capitalistic exchange vis-à-vis art. While it is undeniably useful to draw attention to the way capitalism impacts artistic production, it should be acknowledged that concrete poetry is only marginally removed from commodification.

Also problematic is his tacit establishing of a dichotomy between "non-meaning" concrete and "straightforward" traditional poetics. It should be noted that all good poetry, whether in sonnet form or free verse, revels in multiple meaning and resists authoritative paraphrase. Despite these shortcomings, the ideas raised by beaulieu in his afterword could easily become the foundation of a rather interesting book.