concrete poetry
n.
Poetry that visually conveys the poet's meaning through the graphic arrangement of letters, words, or symbols on the page.
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Poetry that visually conveys the poet's meaning through the graphic arrangement of letters, words, or symbols on the page.
Art form developed in the 1950s and 1960s based on the visual aspects of words. In contrast to 'shaped' poetry, in which the meaning of a text is enhanced by the relationship between a sequence of lines and the overall pattern or silhouette that these lines create on a page (as in George Herbert's 'Easter-Wings', 1633, and Guillaume Apollinaire's Calligrammes, 1918), Concrete poetry largely dispenses with conventional line and syntax. It may bring into use not only a wide range of typefaces (see TYPOGRAPHY) but also other elements derived from calligraphy, collage, graphics and computer-generated shapes. It can appropriately be considered a visual art, though it is also a literary one.
See the Abbreviations for further details.
concrete poetry, a kind of picture made out of printed type, and regarded in the 1950s and 1960s, when it enjoyed an international vogue, as an experimental form of poetry. It usually involves a punning kind of typography in which the visual pattern enacts or corresponds in some way to the sense of the word or phrase represented: a well‐known early example is Guillaume Apollinaire's poem ‘Il pleut’ (‘It rains’, 1918), in which the words appear to be falling down the page like rain. The Scottish artist and poet Ian Hamilton Finlay is one of the few significant practitioners in English; his works come closer to sculpture than to two‐dimensional art. Most concrete poems are apprehended instantaneously by the viewer as visual shapes, since they dispense with the linear sequence demanded by language; these therefore have little claim to the status of poetry. Others are closer to the traditional form of pattern poetry, in which typographical presentation supports an already coherent poem.
Poetry which forms a structurally original visual shape, preferably abstract, through the use of reduced language, fragmented letters, symbols and other typographical variations to create an extreme graphic impact on the reader's attention. The essence of concrete poetry lies in its appearance on the page rather than in the written text; it is intended to be perceived as a visual whole and often cannot be effective when read aloud.
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. It is sometimes referred to as visual poetry, a term that has evolved to have distinct meaning of its own.
The term was coined in the 1950s, and in 1956 an international exhibition of concrete poetry was shown in São Paulo, Brazil, inspired by the work of Carlos Drummond de Andrade. Two years later, a Brazilian concrete poetry manifesto was published. One of the earliest Brazilian pioneers, Augusto de Campos, has assembled a Web site of old and new work (see external links below), including the manifesto. Its principal tenet is that using words as part of a specifically visual work allows for the words themselves to become part of the poetry, rather than just unseen vehicles for ideas. The original manifesto says:
Although the term is quite modern, the idea of using letter arrangements to enhance the meaning of a poem is an old one. This style of poetry originated in Greek Alexandria during the third and second centuries B.C.E. Some were designed as decoration for religious art-works, including wing-, axe- and altar-shaped poems. Only a handful of examples survive, which are collected together in the Greek Anthology. They include poems by Simias and Theocritus.
Early examples of typographically-based poetry include the following poem by George Herbert (1593-1633) (here in a scan of the 1633 edition of Herbert's The Temple), in which the poem is merely a comment on the title, which presents the poem's principal meaning typographically:
Another early precursor from Herbert is "Easter Wings", in which the overall typography of the poem is in the shape of its subject. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll contains a similar effect in the form of the mouse's "Tale," which is in the shape of a tail. In the early 20th century, artists and poets comprising the Futurism movement used concrete poetry as a dynamic expression of their anarchistic philosophies. F.T. Marinetti was the most prolific poet among them, and created several works that destroyed all typographic conventions. More recent poets sometimes cited as influences by concrete poets include Guillaume Apollinaire, E. E. Cummings, for his various typographical innovations, and Ezra Pound, for his use of Chinese ideograms, as well as various dadaists.
Concrete poetry, however, is a more self-conscious form than these predecessors, using typography in part to comment on the fundamental instability of language. Among the better known concrete poets in the English language are Ian Hamilton Finlay and Edwin Morgan. Several important concrete poets have also been significant sound poets, among them Henri Chopin, and Bob Cobbing.
Newer forms of concrete/visual poetry are still being created, such as the interactive and puzzle poetry by Jennifer Kathleen Phillips. Some of these contain poems within a poem or visual messages triggered by the sound or synergy of the shape of words and letters. Word Art now blurrs the boundaries between poetry and art.
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