Beginning
1






















IMAGE

2
























(This)
MISSING
Image

3




























GUERILLA
WARFARE

4






























VISUAL
POETRY

5
























Literatura
Cibernetica

6































W e b P o e s i e

7


























          s e m a n t i c
      
           i  m  a  g  e
             c
                o
                   n
                      s
8





























poesie tecnologica

9
burroughs
























Awake!
C'est deja midi!!!

10
























Dictatorship of the
POETariat!

11

























Attenzione!
But does there exist a revolutionary essence of the avant garde?

12

























poesie en question

13

























appropriation of the
code(s)

14
























institutional (WWW) languages

in the service of...?

15
























"...as a means of active
transformation of

16























society

17
























or at the level of
support for the world

18



























support of the world
class struggle

(the exploited against the exploiting.)"

sarenco & paul de vree, "Lotta Poetica 8", 1972

19
































la escrittura en libertad

20





























literature is not a linguistic autobiography

21






















22




























[www] (semiotic) code appropriation

23






















proletarisimo e dittatura della poesia!

24




























[poesia en question]


GUERILLA WARFARE

25






















[poesia en question]


(THIS)

mssing]

im age

26


































[poesia en question]

end






























































"Literature, unlike journalism, survives not by 'saying something new,' but by inventing structures not read before."
Richard Kostenlanetz, Language & Structure in North America, Toronto, 1975

return

































"POETRY NOW ADDRESSES ITSELF TO A NOT-YET EXISTENT SOCIETY CAPABLE OF PERCEIVING LITERARY CREATION BEYOND THE BOOK."

mario diacono, "abstrAct and oBjEctual poeTRY", (aaa, No.1, 1969) in Italian Visual Poetry 1912-1972, Bellerini, Luigi, ed., Finch College Museum, 1973

return









































"POETRY HAS IN FACT GIVEN UP THE FUNCTION OF THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM AND ITS DURATION AS A PRODUCT."

mario diacono, "abstrAct and oBjEctual poeTRY", (aaa, No.1, 1969) in Italian Visual Poetry 1912-1972, Bellerini, Luigi, ed., Finch College Museum, 1973

return









































"THE PROCESS OF ALIENATION OF THE POETIC WORK FROM LITERATURE IS IRREVERSIBLE AND ON ITS WAY TO AN INFINITE DIALECTICS."

mario diacono, "abstrAct and oBjEctual poeTRY", (aaa, No.1, 1969) in Italian Visual Poetry 1912-1972, Bellerini, Luigi, ed., Finch College Museum, 1973

return









































"The poem is...a quantity of words, not
  • not a quantity of visual or phonetic signs
  • nor a quantity of things, feelings, states of mind."

E. Miccini & M Perfetti, "poesia visiva," Italian Visual Poetry 1912-1972, Bellerini, Luigi, ed., Finch College Museum, 1973

return









































"Natural poetry is made of linear nexi having one temporal direction only,
from the beginning of the poem to the end;
they are nexi determined by semantic and phonematic quotients
held together by metric and rhythmic caesuras,
by symmetry, by clauses and sentences.

The semiotic values are totally ignored

."

E. Miccini & M Perfetti, "poesia visiva," Italian Visual Poetry 1912-1972, Bellerini, Luigi, ed., Finch College Museum, 1973
return

"...'aesthetization' of mass-media formal structures,
which [visual poetry] adopts as its own model,
while denouncing their negative role in the social context."

luciano ori, La Poesia Visiva (1963-1979), Firenze, 1979.

return








































"It is a moment of open collision, when Visual Poetry acts a real semiotic guerilla war: it uproots messages and meanings, overturns them, changes their signs. In practice it dissociates their verbal-iconic materials to rea rrange them in opposite meanings and messages."

luciano ori, La Poesia Visiva (1963-1979), Firenze, 1979.

return








































"...institutional languages, more than mass-media, are the real anti-bodies of any establishment, as they are able to effect a constant immunization against the most radical processes of social change, [therefore] Visual Poetry shifts from the semi otic guerrilla war to the appropriation of the codes of all the different areas of communication and of artistic expression.. Visual Poetry expropriates them of their constitutional signs which it reduces to 'items' of a huge, universal dictionary."

luciano ori, La Poesia Visiva (1963-1979), Firenze, 1979.

return








































"...'items' of a huge, universal dictionary."

return








































"...institutional languages, more than mass-media, are the real anti-bodies of any establishment, as they are able to effect a constant immunization against the most radical processes of social change, [therefore] Visual Poetry shifts from the semi otic guerrilla war to the appropriation of the codes of all the different areas of communication and of artistic expression.. Visual Poetry expropriates them of their constitutional signs which it reduces to 'items' of a huge, universal dictionary."

luciano ori, La Poesia Visiva (1963-1979), Firenze, 1979.

return









































"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

return










































"...[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

return









































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

franco vaccari, Lotta Poetica 8, 1972

return










































"...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

return


























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

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

return

























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

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

return

burroughs1

























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

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

return

burroughs2


























"ELIMINATE THE "IS" OF IDENTITY

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

return


























ELIMINATE "THE"

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

return


























"ELIMINATE "EITHER/OR" RELATIONSHIPS

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

return


























"ELIMINATE "EITHER/OR" RELATIONSHIPS

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

return



























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?

return





























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."

return




























Imagine the

state of poetry


in a nation ruled
by [poet] dictators for 30 years.

return




























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.

return