Wednesday 6 December 2017

VISPO (Books One and Two)

VISPO (Books One and Two)
I well remember the rush when the announcement was made in December 2011 that there would be a collaborative vispo book on the IUOMA website. Once the call was placed in ether, places for the two books filled quickly.  The call was taken up by artists from USA, UK, Argentina, Russia, Belgium, Greece, Switzerland, Germany and South Africa - a fabulous selection of Mail Artists, some new to the genre and some longtime practitioners of this visual form of poetry. I was in the process of writing for the catalogue of The New Alexandrian Library, but far prefer material from De Villo Sloan’s introductions to the two collaborations.  From Book Two: “The visual poetry concept, for most of us, is best understood through the lenses of painting, photography, collage, video and similar genres: Contemporary cultures program us to be adept at reading visual images, image sequences (from montage in film), and visual syntax. We can readily accept the notion that written and printed language is part of the larger visual image landscape. Thus, it is plausible that text and image can be integrated to create metaphor, rhetoric, lyricism, narrative, non-linearity, form and even visual prosody – elements associated with literary tradition and the notion of the poetic".


"What is less apparent, but revealed especially by the work in this edition, is that the “Great Tradition” of poetry has evolved in such a way that visual poetry is now a viable, if not a desirable, genre in the post-literature of the 21st century”.

If you are interested in visual poetry as an art form, I would suggest you take the time to read the introductions to these books, as they are succinct and insightful commentaries on this poetic form.



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