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Reading Visual Poetry

Willard Bohn

Visual poetry can be defined as poetry that is meant to be seen. Combining painting and poetry, it attempts to synthesize the principles underlying each discipline. Visual poems are immediately recognizable by their refusal to adhere to a rectilinear grid and by their tendency to flout their plasticity. In contrast to traditional poetry, they are conceived not only as literary works but also as works of art. Although they continue to provide visual cues that aid in deciphering the text, they function simultaneously as visual compositions. Whether the visual elements form a rudimentary pattern or whether they constitute a highly sophisticated design, they transform the poem into a picture. Reading Visual Poetry examines works created in Spain, Latin America, France, Italy, Brazil, and the United States. While it attempts to recreate the historical and cultural context surrounding each of the works in question, it is conceived primarily as a series of readings-or rather as a series of readings about reading. This book seeks to interpret a number of poems, which, despite their apparent simplicity, can be difficult to decipher. It explores the process of interpretation itself, which, like the compositions, can be surprisingly complex.

University Press Copublishing Division / Fairleigh Dickinson University Press

Pages: 176 • Trim: 6½ x 9½

978-1-61147-062-8 • Hardback • December 2010 • $102.00 • (£78.00)

978-1-61147-615-6 • Paperback • April 2013 • $54.99 • (£42.00)

978-1-61147-063-5 • eBook • December 2010 • $52.00 • (£40.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Poetry, Literary Collections / American / General, Literary Collections / European / General

Reading Visual Poetry

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

Visual poetry can be defined as poetry that is meant to be seen. Combining painting and poetry, it attempts to synthesize the principles underlying each discipline. Visual poems are immediately recognizable by their refusal to adhere to a rectilinear grid and by their tendency to flout their plasticity. In contrast to traditional poetry, they are conceived not only as literary works but also as works of art. Although they continue to provide visual cues that aid in deciphering the text, they function simultaneously as visual compositions. Whether the visual elements form a rudimentary pattern or whether they constitute a highly sophisticated design, they transform the poem into a picture. Reading Visual Poetry examines works created in Spain, Latin America, France, Italy, Brazil, and the United States. While it attempts to recreate the historical and cultural context surrounding each of the works in question, it is conceived primarily as a series of readings-or rather as a series of readings about reading. This book seeks to interpret a number of poems, which, despite their apparent simplicity, can be difficult to decipher. It explores the process of interpretation itself, which, like the compositions, can be surprisingly complex.

Details

University Press Copublishing Division / Fairleigh Dickinson University Press

Pages: 176 • Trim: 6½ x 9½

978-1-61147-062-8 • Hardback • December 2010 • $102.00 • (£78.00)

978-1-61147-615-6 • Paperback • April 2013 • $54.99 • (£42.00)

978-1-61147-063-5 • eBook • December 2010 • $52.00 • (£40.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Poetry, Literary Collections / American / General, Literary Collections / European / General

Author

Willard Bohn is distinguished professor emeritus of French and comparative literature at Illinois State University.

Table of Contents

1 List of Illustrations
2 Acknowledgments
Chapter 3 1. The Word Made Flesh
Chapter 4 2. Spanish Ultraist Poetry
Chapter 5 3. Hispano-American Poetry
Chapter 6 4. French Poetry after Apollinaire
Chapter 7 5. Italian Futurist Aeropoetry
Chapter 8 6. Brazilian Concrete Poetry
Chapter 9 7. Digital Poetry
Chapter 10 8. Eyesight and Hindsight
11 Notes
12 Bibliography
13 Index

Reviews

The title here is literal. Bohn provides readings of notable 'concrete' poems—poems formatted into a picture or visual design (kinetic digital as well as static print) rather than standard lineated text—from a range of modern literary moments and orbits (Spanish, French, Italian, and Brazilian). The author traces neither the history nor principles of the literary movement as such, nor the development of the genre itself. He follows a straightforward, three-part procedure for engaging the poems: first, perceiving the visual design as a gestalt; second, deciphering the text in its unorthodox and often multiple physical orientations; third, synthesizing the visual and literary import. Interested primarily in the dynamics of "reading visual poetry" as a process, he works inductively, translating and negotiating his way through each poem largely through trial and error, considering and discarding one interpretative possibility after another and bringing the reader along as an eavesdropper on his reflective critical deliberations. The effect is delightful: the readings are as much performance as analysis. And the analysis is particularly illuminating in revealing the semiotic and ontological intricacies of a poetry that many still consider, even after more than a generation of serious scholarly attention, little more than gimmickry. Summing Up: Recommended.
— Choice Reviews

Bohn offers in-depth analysis of individual poems, showing how visual semantics operate to complement and complicate linguistic meaning.... As a whole, the book provides an excellent introduction to visual poetry and a succession of illuminating readings, but its particular value lies in the breadth of poets and poems considered. It is a welcome addition to the critical literature and will be an invaluable resource for those approaching the genre for the first time.
— Forum For Modern Language Studies

[The] explanation of form and analysis. . . works well throughout the book. It was interesting to see the changes in styles from poster-printing to enable the text in graphic form. . . to presses and typewriters coming to the fore. ... Reading Visual Poetry can set you off on a really interesting and thought provoking journey.
— Poetryparc

Reading Visual Poetry

Willard Bohn

Reading Visual Poetry

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