Early in the century, poets expanded the possibilities of their genre by creating sound poems, by dispensing with syntax and punctuation, and by arranging words and letters across the page in new visual patterns. This book explores ways of reading the aesthetically challenging and semiotically subversive texts created by four poets: F.T. Marinetti (1876-1944), Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) and e.e. cummings (1894-1962). The book shows us how to read these experimental texts in a variety of interrelated ways: as products of each poet's individual aesthetic, as part of the avant-garde's reaction to aestheticism, as efforts to bring art closer to life, and as attempts to c reate a new kind of semiotically and aesthetically 'open' work. The book concludes by emphasizing the individual invention of its four central figures rather than placing them in their usual roles as precursors to the concrete poetry movement of the fifties.

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.

Far from frivolous playthings, modern visual poems represent serious experiments. Together with other members of the avant-grade, the visual poets sought to restructure the basic vision of reality that they inherited from their predecessors. This statement describes contemporary visual poets as well who, like their earlier colleagues, strive to say things that are more meaningful in ways that are more meaningful."--BOOK JACKET.

Rev. ed. of: The Princeton encyclopedia of poetry and poetics / Alex Preminger and T.V.F. Brogan, co-editors; Frank J. Warnke, O.B. Hardison, Jr., and Earl Miner, associate editors. 1993.

The Handbook of International Futurism is the first reference work ever to presents in a comparative fashion all media and countries in which the movement, initiated by F.T. Marinetti in 1909, exercised a particularly noteworthy influence. The handbook offers a synthesis of the state of scholarship regarding the international radiation of Futurism and its influence in some fifteen artistic disciplines and thirty-eight countries. While acknowledging the great achievements of the movement in the visual and literary arts of Italy and Russia, it treats Futurism as an international, multidisciplinary phenomenon that left a lasting mark on the manifold artistic manifestations of the early twentieth-century avant-garde. Hundreds of artists, who in some phase in their career absorbed Futurist ideas and stylistic devices, are presented in the context of their national traditions, their international connections and the media in which they were predominantly active. The handbook acts as a kind of multi-disciplinary, geographical encyclopaedia of Futurism and gives scholars with varying levels of experience a detailed overview of all countries and disciplines in which the movement had a major impact.

A comprehensive and original guide to Elizabeth Bishop's poetry and other writing, including literary criticism and prose fictionCelebrating Elizabeth Bishop as an international writer with allegiances to various countries and national traditions, this collection of essays explores how Bishop moves between literal geographies like Nova Scotia, New England, Key West and Brazil and more philosophical categories like home and elsewhere, human and animal, insider and outsider. The book covers all aspects and periods of the author's career, from her early writing in the 1930s to the late poems finished after Geography III and those works published after her death. It also examines how Bishop's work has been read and reinterpreted by contemporary writers. Key FeaturesProvides a companion to Bishop's entire artistic oeuvre, including letter writing, literary criticism and short story writingOffers a sustained consideration of Bishop's identity politics, including the role of raceStudies Bishop's influence on contemporary culture

In this, the only full-length study of the visual poetry of the early twentieth century, Willard Bohn expertly illuminates the works of Apollinaire, Josep-Maria Junow, Guillermo de Torre, and others. His fascinating aesthetic insights bring to life this elusive and often misunderstood genre. "An important contribution. Highly sophisticated, the study tends to raise its reader's impression of visual poetry in the twentieth century from trivial pastime to serious preoccupation."—Eric Sellin, Journal of Modern Literature "With his definitive analyses full of quotable observations and sharp critical insights, Bohn has provided a model, pioneering study, one from which current and future studies of visual poetry will most certainly benefit."—Gerald J. Janacek, Romance Quarterly "Bohn substantiates his thesis with thoughtful and often ingenious explications of texts both well known and hard to find. . . . Aesthetics of Visual Poetry is a thoroughly researched, beautifully written and fascinating introduction to an infinitely intriguing genre."—Mechthild Cranston, French Review