Visual poetry, is poetry or art in which the visual arrangement of text, images and symbols is important in conveying the intended effect of the work. It is sometimes referred to as concrete poetry, a term that predates visual poetry, and at one time was synonymous with it. This article is about the art form. ... This article is about the philosophical concept of Art. ... Concrete poetry, pattern poetry or shape poetry is poetry in which the typographical arrangement of words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the conventional elements of the poem, such as meaning of words, rhythm, rhyme and so on. ...

Visual poetry was heavily influenced by Fluxus, which is usually described as being Intermedia. Intermedia work tends to blur the distinctions between different media, and visual poetry blurs the distinction between art and text. Whereas concrete poetry is still recognizable as poetry, being composed of purely typographic elements, visual poetry is generally much less text-dependent. Visual poems incorporate text, but the text may have primarily a visual function. Visual poems often incorporate significant amounts of non-text imagery in addition to text. Fluxus – a name taken from a Latin word meaning to flow – is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. ... For the hypertext system, see Intermedia (hypertext) Intermedia was a concept employed in the mid-sixties by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins to describe the ineffable, often confusing, inter-disciplinary activities that occur between genres that became prevalent in the 1960s. ...

It should be noted here that there remains some debate regarding the distinction between concrete poetry and visual poetry. There are three dominant views regarding the issue. One view is that visual poetry is synonymous with concrete poetry. A second view is that visual poetry is a type (or sub-category) of concrete poetry. And the last view (adopted in this article) is that visual poetry has evolved into a visual form distinct from concrete poetry. This view is supported by work identified as visual poetry in which, typographic elements are secondary to visual elements, or are minimal, or in some cases are absent altogether from the work.

See Also

• Fluxus
• Haptic Poetry
• Asemic Writing
• Concrete Poetry
• Lettrism
• List of Concrete and Visual Poets
• Something Else Press
• Digital Poetry
• Video Poetry
• Futurism

Fluxus – a name taken from a Latin word meaning to flow – is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. ... Haptic poetry, like visual poetry and sound poetry, is a liminal art form combining characteristics of typography and sculpture to create objects not only to be seen, but to be touched and manipulated. ... Asemic writing is an open semantic form of writing. ... Concrete poetry, pattern poetry or shape poetry is poetry in which the typographical arrangement of words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the conventional elements of the poem, such as meaning of words, rhythm, rhyme and so on. ... Lettrism is a French avant-garde movement, established in Paris in the mid-1940s by Romanian immigrant Isidore Isou. ... Below is a partial list of Concrete poets and Visual poets from around the world. ... Something Else Press was founded by Dick Higgins in 1963. ... Digital poetry (also referred to as E-poetry, short for electronic poetry, also computer poetry) refers to a wide range of approaches to poetry that all have in common prominent and crucial use of computers. ... Futurism (or Futurist) may refer to: Futures studies, the philosophical or academic study of the medium to long-term future (also known as futurology). ...

References

• Kaldron Magazine Archives
• Willard Bonn: The Aesthetics of Visual Poetry, 1914-1928. University Of Chicago Press, 1993
• Dick Higgins: Synesthesia and Intersenses: Intermedia 1965, Originally published in Something Else Newsletter 1, No. 1 (Something Else Press, 1966). Also published as a chapter in Dick Higgins, Horizons, the Poetics and Theory of the Intermedia (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1984).

Dick Higgins (born Cambridge, England 1938, died Quebec, Canada 1998) was a poet and early Fluxus artist. ...

External links

• From Concrete to Visual Poetry by Klaus Peter Dencker
• Kaldron Wall 1997 - 1998, visual poetry exhibition
• UbuWeb, which hosts a large amount of concrete poetry
• The Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry
• Synesthesia and Intersenses: Intermedia an essay by Dick Higgins
• e-motive: Visual Poetry in the Digital Age