"Visual Poetry [denies] the privileged status attributed to the verbal use of the word or to the word tout court, {and} places itself outside literature...."

eugenio miccini & michele perfetti, "texts", Lotta Poetica 8, 1972

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"...[Visual Poetry] is not complementary to [literature], does not directly make use of its models, does not respect its 'genres,' and even postulates itself as an alternative."

eugenio miccini & michele perfetti, "texts", Lotta Poetica 8, 1972

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Poet: "a message producer with a minimal coefficient of false conscience."

franco vaccari, Lotta Poetica 8, 1972

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"...art is not outside of or above ideologies but expresses these in favor of or against one another of the motor forces of history...."

clemente podin "texts", Lotta Poetica 11, 1972

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"We may forget that a written word is an image and that ...."

William F. Burroughs, Electronic Revolution, Expanded Media Editions, 1991, p.6


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"...and that written words are images in sequence, that is to say ...."


William F. Burroughs, Electronic Revolution, Expanded Media Editions, 1991, p.6


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"...that is to say, moving pictures." [!]


William F. Burroughs, Electronic Revolution, Expanded Media Editions, 1991, p.6


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"ELIMINATE THE "IS" OF IDENTITY


William F. Burroughs, "The Invisible Generation", Electronic Revolution, Expanded Media Editions, 1991, p.6


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ELIMINATE "THE"

William F. Burroughs, "The Invisible Generation, Electronic Revolution, Expanded Media Editions, 1991, p.6


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"ELIMINATE "EITHER/OR" RELATIONSHIPS


William F. Burroughs, "The Invisible Generation" Electronic Revolution, Expanded Media Editions, 1991, p.6


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"ELIMINATE "EITHER/OR" RELATIONSHIPS

William F. Burroughs, "The Invisible Generation" Electronic Revolution, Expanded Media Editions, 1991, p.6

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POSTYPOGRAPHICAL

                                  Beyond the Gutenberg Galaxy
 

                                  By Fabio Doctorovich

                                  (f.doctor@chem-mail.gatech.edu)
        

THE RUTH AND MARVIN SACKNER ARCHIVE

   OF CONCRETE AND VISUAL POETRY
        

On that morning in Biscayne Bay, I was surrounded, spelled, minimized by the
impossible Sackner's archivehouse, the largest collection of verbovisual
imagery in the world -at least 35,000 books as well as 15,000 other works-. 
On that morning in Miami Beach I rang the bell, and when the door opened
there were no words to describe because words invaded me, subdued my
insignified visualpoetic soul and showed me with Their grandeur all the
colossal works I never created and never will be able to. NOT after the
Archive got into me with its power and fury. Their whole house -because the
Archive is the Sackner's home- has been conquered. Invaded from the ground
level living room to the first floor master bedroom and even the hallways and bathrooms by written carpets and verbal paintings and worden clocks and
poetic sculptures and more and more: words, books, symbols, languages,
signifiers. LIKE A SYMBOLIC FOREST CONSTRUCTED BY A LEGION OF POETS. And I
should say: all we visually oriented poets shall visit that hexed house. But
I will say: we shall get bewitched by its energy and shall realize how
minuscule our works are in that context were the uncontrollable visualpower
of words and symbols manifests in all kinds of sizes and shapes, from the
microwritings of Enzo Miglietta to the huge Paul Laffoley's 5x18 feet Dante's Divine Comedy triptych or the more-than-300-original pages of Tom Phillips' transformation of a found Victorian novel: "A
Humument". And it was a retrospective exhibition of Tom Phillips' artworks
along with the "discovery" of Emmett Williams "Anthology of Concrete Poetry"
that would lead Ruth and Marvin Sackner to realize that those intriguing
fascinating works that they had been collecting for five years were
nothing else but visual poetry.  Of course, such an immense collection does
not include poetry only but also works that are better characterized as
visual art that involves the use of symbols of some kind. But then: who cares
about classifications when we can barely breath through that thick
verbovisual atmosphere, when we are euphorized, paralyzed, slenderized by the
sight and touch of those unattainable works?


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POSTYPOGRAPHICAL

 
Literature beyond the Gutenberg Galaxy

                                        By Fabio Doctorovich

                                        (f.doctor@chem-mail.gatech.edu)

 
The Argentinean Scene: PARALENGUA

 
*Imagine: the state of poetry in a nation ruled by dictators for 30 years.

*Imagine: the terror in a country in which 30,000 people "disappeared" in a
short period of time, most of them assassinated, a good number by being
drugged and threw alive to the sea from navy airplanes.

*Imagine: a stupid war fought over two insignificant islands (the "Malvinas"
or "Falklands") by a military government that was collapsing at a point in
which the fear created by the abovementioned killings was not enough to avoid
its fall.

 
And then *imagine: poetry in Argentina.

        
During the 60s there was a period of relative freedom, and it was then that
Edgardo Antonio Vigo introduced visual poetry in Argentina and started the
magazine "Diagonal Cero". He developed the "poetry to and/or realize" -a type
of concrete poetry in which the "reader" contributes to the making of the
poem-, and together with others such as Mirta Dermisache and Armando Zarate
(author of "Otra Sintaxis" published by Luna Bisonte Prods) founded the basis
for postypographical poetry in Argentina.

 
In 1983 democracy was definitely (so far) restored and all the creative power
repressed for almost 30 years gave birth (after 6 years of gestation) to
Paralengua -Paratongue, Fortongue, the parallel tongue, the
language-but-not-written-language, the alternative outsider. Organized by a
sound poet (Carlos Estevez), a visual poet (Roberto Cignoni) and myself, the
movement has grown exponentially in a short period of time, embracing a large
number of poets. Due to its postypographical nature, Paralengua's preferred
forms of expression
are not magazines or books but poetry shows and performances. The presence of
an audience at the moment that the poem is performed not only improves the
poet-'reader' rapport but also makes feasible the participation of the public
in the making of the poem (a fact clearly
related to Vigo's "poetry to and/or realize"). In some cases, participants
are invited to "confess" a poem to a priest-poet concealed on the stage
behind a black curtain (Jorge Santiago Perednik); in others, fragments of a
poem are distributed among the audience (which is separated into
severalgroups) to be read, therefore producing a sound poem (F.D.). Sometimes
a type of "poetic interview" is held in which the public may ask the poets
any kind of question that are answered in the form of improvised poems,
reminding of the "payadas" held by gauchos (Roberto Cignoni).
 

Nevertheless, this eclosion of a variety of postypographical poetic works has
made difficult to construct solid theoretical basis. It may be  envisioned
that in following years the movement will be cribbed as some theoretical
light starts to arise. By the moment, and as Carlos Estevez
has said, Paralengua "has a proteinic and tentacular nature which doesn't
lack festivity, intellectualism, sensitivity and, most important, a passion
that possesses all the dimensions of language."

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Imagine the

state of poetry


in a nation ruled

by [poet] dictators for 30 years.

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Imagine:
 the terror in a country [Argentina] in which 30,000 people "disappeared" in a
short period of time, most of them assassinated, a good number by being
drugged and thrown alive into the sea from navy airplanes.

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