Jim Rosenberg's "Diagram Series 4" poems mark a fundamental step along the evolutionary development of his work away from his earlier, linear poetry towards his current, highly visual, experimentations (see above image). The "Diagram Series" emerged out of Rosenberg's interest in establishing an expanding field of possibilities for making art. In his more linear poems Rosenberg had composed pieces which presented one linguistic phrase after another. These layered phrases formed a poem made up of a continuous, impressionistic stream of words. Along with his manipulations of these language streams he began to focus on the possibility of using clusters of words as evocative poetic devices. To connect these word clusters Rosenberg developed what he termed "diagram syntax" or structural relationships to expose the multifarious ways in which meaning works to connect what would otherwise be separate clusters of words. The combination of his "diagram syntax" with word clusters resulted in the formulation of an unique language of symbols.
The poems within the "Diagram Series 4" were composed between the years 1968 and 1984. They evolved out of Rosenberg's interest in the expansive possibilities he saw in the integration of technology and the arts. In these poems he playfully manipulates what is conventionally understood as language through his creation of "diagram syntax." While his construction of this unique language of symbols is a coy deconstruction of typical communicative techniques, his themes and imagery are anything but light hearted.