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.
