What poetry is visual?

[John M. Bennett]

Toda poesia es visual
All poetry is visual
Tuda poesia e visual

[Gik Juri]

Any poetry has visual and sond property. You can see any poem by eyes and You can read this poetry (almost any) by voice.

[carl baker]

dear sir,
visual poetry(an abomination) begins when it no longer has meaning.
&generally brings things out into the world of form,shape,pattern.
akademiks would have this another way.
something of the universe in terms of starlight, tiny ocean creatures etc.
&so>

[Gik Juri]

Yes, it was non-academic definition, poetic. So, visual poetry existed always and is everything! The same, I think, is with mail art or artist's books etc. 8-)

[John M. Bennett]

All is poetry, nothing is poetry

Or, to be more precise:


Yammer Yammer

tires and lamps the ,stunned lung
,piles of deep ,aim the luggage
off me ,rustling flies ,the wall
whisper ,ash and nails ,bullet jail
,coarse of steaming ,the grunty pile
,past lisper dog hammered in the
light ,a duck float gun a numb
er nodding in the fires and glance
the summed clung miles of sleep the
name roughage rusting in my thighs
,all crisper cash and cleaning


- Johneeeee On the Mountain

[Gik Juri]

visual poetry is concrete poetry is found poetry is experimental poetry is visual poetry

[Juan Angel Italiano]

The visual poem in contrast to the written verbal poem, changes the weight of his speech, not already in a linear reading, but in an analogical proposal, the order disappears, the pigeonholing seems useless. The interdisciplinary nature is a product of the new cultural paradigms, the purity seems impossible; so much in the real world as in that of the ideas. The visual poem takes part of the modernity, in what Molero Prior defines like the redistribution of the poetical space. The visual poem takes part of the crossbreeding mediático, makes the picto clear - textualidad of the work. Now then, that are the visual poems, from when, how we distinguish them: do they possess characteristics that define them in a poetical corpus? The trasgresores of the vernacular concept of Poetry, in the western universe, have long byline, but it is Lamberto Pignotti who surrounds to the visual poem when he says that the use of the resource of the image underlines the limit of the word and simultaneously, the intervention of the word makes to highlight the wear of the image. There would be perhaps, that to add to this definition, fact that the words, in turn they are shaped by minimal units, letters, which themselves, also they can mean.

El poema visual a diferencia del poema verbal escrito, cambia el peso de su discurso, no ya en una lectura lineal, sino en una propuesta analógica, el orden desaparece, el encasillamiento parece inútil. La interdisciplinariedad es producto de los nuevos paradigmas culturales, la pureza parece imposible; tanto en el mundo real como en el de las ideas. El poema visual participa de la modernidad, en lo que Molero Prior define como la redistribución del espacio poético. El poema visual participa del mestizaje mediático, hace patente la picto- textualidad de la obra. Ahora bien, que son los poemas visuales, desde cuando, cómo los distinguimos, ¿poseen características que los definan en un corpus poético? Los trasgresores del concepto vernáculo de Poesía, en el universo occidental, tienen larga data, pero es Lamberto Pignotti quien cerca al poema visual cuando dice que la utilización del recurso de la imagen subraya el límite de la palabra y simultáneamente, la intervención de la palabra hace resaltar el desgaste de la imagen. Habría tal vez, que agregarle a esta definición, el hecho que las palabras, a su vez están conformadas con unidades mínimas, letras, que por si solas, también pueden significar.

[John M. Bennett]

What Juan Angel says is very meaningful. I like to think of visual poetry as creating a simultaneity of language, which is normally dealt with in a linear fashion. But the beauty of visual poetry is, that it can create BOTH simultaneity and linearity AT THE SAME TIME in a particular work. Of course, some works are more or less of one or the other, but this double perception underlies most visual poetry.

Of course, it could be argued that ALL poetry has elements of both linear and simultaneous perception, especially shorter poems. There are many ways in which simultaneity is created in a textual poem: rime, ambiguity, formal structures, etc. I tend to perceive poetry in this way.

[Gik Juri]

And what about asemic poetry/literature? Is this kind of visual poetry?

[John M. Bennett]

Yes!
and also globbolalic or glossolalic poetry

[david-baptiste chirot]

Visual Poetry is the oldest form of human notation--
a paradox is that by enduring so long through time,
works on rock, in the environment, have "lost" their "original" "message"
--thus creating a notation at once "asemic" & uncanny--that is, it is apprehended immediately as "communication"
without the "necessity" of a "message"--
as well as through time, taking the Egyptian hieroglyphs alone, providing centuries of the creation of al manner of "translations" which in themselves created a myriad "potential" languages in embryo as it were--fictiaonl as with Psalmazar (sp, sorry)--
the sense of codes in visual poetry its use through thousands of years to carry "hidden in plain site/sight/cite" "purloined letters"--
for myself visual-visceral-sonic-haptic "poetry" emerges from that which is--
"look under your feet!"says the Taoist Chuang-Tzu
i work with the Found--everywhere to be Found--
hidden in plain site/sight/cite--
with Picasso i concur: "I do not seek, I find"--
that is without imposing ahead of time the grids, definitions, names--
one disciplines oneself through work though time to be open with al that EMERGES-
that which calls, signs, touches one--energy--
the act & experience of BEing as in my "rubBEings"--which emerge--from telephone poles from lettering of raised or incised form which is made literally direct "contact with" in that on side of the paper the materials is touching my hand, crayon, paint clay etc as they touch from the other side--
and do emerges from this merging --what Burroughs & Gysin , after T. S. Eliot--called "The Third Mind"--
Paul Celan wrote: "Poetry no longer imposes itself., it exposes itself"--the works i make with the materials working two-gether--
create a hieroglyph/(chiroglyph?!)--of siote/sight/cite--of memory dream concrete fact imagination--visceral--in the moment while also in my works finding and transcribing as it were the actions through time, the effects, through time and its disruptions eruptions disasters bombing burnings demolitions the erosions of water dust the chemical interactions/reactions which rust and effect in a myriad way the shapes colors "soundings" of the materials--
language also effected by detournement by the changes n meanings from time from moving to new places a word may mean simultaneously in different locations even adjacent as well as far from each other--very different meanings al these lives and deaths regenerations negentropies, entropic language in any of its forms--visceral visual sonic haptic emotional spiritual mental--al of these that emerge may be Found and find their ways int othe works--
"visual poetry since the term is being used here--is barely scratching its own surfaces of possibilities--environmental works as in Smithson in the writings of Poe which Smithson takes inspiration from works outdoors such as i and many others make interacting with the environment living in it protesting what is hapening with it--Clemente Padin esp in recent years a great many such works--
creating works anonymous markings i dirt which the weather swiftly vanishes, transforms into new "languages" continually--
as Basho wrote:
"the basis of art is change in the universe"--
too often one finds onesefl thinking how distant visual poetry so called is from the actual experience of seeing looking finding--in the environment materials everywhere and as though visual poetry disconnected from vision the visionary aspects of the visual--is abandoning life itself in a sense and removed becomes "academic exercises" in formalism--endless reiterations of the same templates of what "looks like " "visual poetry"
many of these thoughts through time finds oneself not alone as letters arrive from many countries sensing the same disconnects--perhaps an isolationism--which exits historically--re the us--which goes with the sense of being "number one" etc
also very much is a time of Great Fear continually propounded by the media, the government, by the degrees of censorship which become interiorized and turn tino unconscious or not self censorship--creating tendencies to conformity, "safety in numbers" etc--from the point of view of others writing aboard in major journals--"the New McCarthyism" in the usa--
but those are questions beyond what is visual poetry the first question so i apologize for going too far--
but things that have come to attention and via others--so one feels are part of "visual poetry"--
re the asemic poetries, again, so many myriad possibilities which are opening and barely glimpsed as yet--which is GREAT!! as with visual poetry so called one has found but the smallest "in-site/sight/cite-meants into, with, for--
and so the infinite opens--
re the asemic for example--one may ask--is this a "private " language--and from there might one think of various forms of "private" language in connection with "privatization" and in turn that it may become a form of branded/rebranding---
a logo as it were for private enterprise to play on words-
a private enterprise of one's own with an established asemic logo--which has been done to be sure
or say that in times when political fallout into the cultural necessitates a self censorship in face of a perceived censorship--might not the asemic be a way to communicate without "communication" i the usua sense of the term, so that one is "safe" which expressing something perhaps "unsafe"
or--this could be done in the rverse, that is to say--asemic writing as a way to elude "saying anything" etc etc
or asemic simply as a decorative aspect without the "need" to "communicate"
one could go on and on with the possibilities, thoughts provoked, al the studying to do into who and when has created such works alone is a tremendous ex/incitement! to continue finding--!!
in this which is delineated yet without limits by the term "visual poetry"
(am rushed so able to only indicate but a very smal glimpse of what is in itself but a small glimpse of what may be thought seen lived sing shout whisper ,murmur be silent experienced heard danced with--to BE with and in--for--and to share with others these findings--
hopefully of interest &use--
onwo/ards ever!
david-bc

[david-baptiste chirot]

i apologize in writing so hurriedly there remain some/many typos and sentences which obscure the meaning in some parts
later on i will essay with more time to "clean it up" and hopefully make it clearer
i do apologize if not clear as it should be--
david-bc

[De Villo Sloan]

Hello David! Thanks for posting. I can read it perfectly, and you always put it in perspective. Reminder of the real territory of poets: the visionary. Reminder we connect to the world through language and it's not an end in itself or something that prevents us from being able to experience the world. You wrote, "Too often one finds oneself thinking how distant visual poetry so called is from the actual experience of seeing looking finding--in the environment materials everywhere and as though visual poetry disconnected from vision the visionary aspects of the visual--is abandoning life itself..." And the true concern of becoming "'academic exercises' in formalism--endless reiterations of the same templates of what 'looks like' 'visual poetry.'"