Description of book from the inside dust jacket: "Liselotte Gumpel brings to her interpretation of these two strains of poetry a solid grounding in language and cultural history as well as fresh and unbiased perceptions about the poems themselves. She offers historical background, draws connections with literary concretism's antecedents in visual arts and music, and usefully applies the semiotics of Max Bense and C.S.Peirce in her descriptions of the "dicentic genres" of the East and the "rhematic connexes" of the West. Under the rubrics of teleological humanism and creative zest she explores the shaping traditions of the two movements. A chapter on significant anthologies from East and West Germany concludes her survey." The dust jacket depicts a mandala by Kriwet that Gumpel characterizes as a "Round Disc." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.