WOW!
I finally figured out how to post.
This is exciting.
I guess I should talk about Humament, which is probably the most amazing thing I've flipped through in a long while. This book helped me understand the real meaning behind visual poetry. To be honest, before reading this book, I had a hard time deciphering between "good" and "not so good" visual poetry, which is necessary to know before attempting to WRITE visual poetry. Humament defines visual poetry for me in two ways:
first, the form itself is a critique of the "word on the page," taking the most loaded and self-aware genre of writing, victorian prose, and simplifying it to "the best words in their best order," a poem. Using the empty space left after editing the text, visual art, in this case paintings, fuse the gaps between the words. Visual poetry, then, is not poetry with words, it is the written word combined with visuals as one complete art form.
Secondly, what makes Humament so integral in my understanding of visual poetry is the fact that if needed, these poems could stand alone without the visuals. I understand visual poetry as poetry ENHANCED by visuals, and hopefully not the other way around. What I have categorized as "bad" or less well crafted visual poetry seems to consist of kitchy objects simply decorated with words.
I guess to summarize, the difference between good and not so well crafted vis. poetry lies in the difference between creative and cleaver art. Humament is of course, the former.
=)
SaM.
