1. François Rigolot, “Le Poétique et l’analogique,” Poétique, no. 35 (September 1978): 267–68.
2. Willard Bohn, Modern Visual Poetry (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2001), 16–17.
3. The Poem Generator, www.vita.uwnet.nl/poem/poem.html.
4. The Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, www.rediscov.com/sacknerarchives/.
5. Marjorie Perloff, Radical Artifice: Writing Poetry in the Age of Media (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 93.
6. Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye, rev. ed.(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), 42–46.
7. W. J. T. Mitchell, What Do Pictures Want?: The Lives and Loves of Images (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), xvii.
8. Ibid., 188–96.
9. Rudolf Arnheim, Visual Thinking (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 135–52.
1. Rafael Cansinos-Asséns, La nueva literatura (Madrid: Paéz, 1927), 3:195.
2. Guillermo de Torre, Guillaume Apollinaire: estudio preliminar y páginas escogidas (Buenos Aires: Poseidon, 1946), 20.
3. René de Costa, “Trayectoria del caligrama en Huidobro,” Poesía (Madrid), no. 3 (November-December 1978): 36.
4. See Dada Almanach, ed. Richard Huelsenbeck (Berlin: Reiss, 1920), 156.
5. I am indebted to Yasbel Fernández-Acuña for this insight.
6. For an analysis of Apollinaire’s “Paysage,” see Bohn, Modern Visual Poetry, 100–121.
7. For an analysis of “Signo celeste,” see Willard Bohn, The Aesthetics of Visual Poetry, 1914–1928 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 163–67.
8. Gloria Videla, El Ultraísmo, 2nd ed. (Madrid: Gredos, 1971), 165.
9. See Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, tr. Willard Trask (New York: Harper and Row, 1953), 120 and 185ff.
10. See Bohn, Aesthetics of Visual Poetry, 146–71. Although it does not seem to have attracted any imitators, a visual composition by Paul Morand appeared in Grecia on June 10, 1919, translated by Rafael Cansinos-Asséns. Entitled “Antología: en la Puerta del Sol,” it juxtaposed numerous signs from the Spanish square to make an attractive poster poem.
11. See Bohn, Aesthetics of Visual Poetry, 172–84.
12. Karl Baedeker, Spain and Portugal: Handbook for Travelers, 4th ed. (Leipzig: Baedeker, 1913), 390. Much of the following information is taken from this volume.
13. Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Obras (Barcelona: Vergara, 1962), 668.
1. Vicente Huidobro, “Triangulo armónico,” “Fresco nipón,” “La capilla aldeana,” and “Nipona” in Canciones en la noche (Santiago de Chile: Chile, 1913). Repr. in Obras completas (Santiago de Chile: Zig-Zag, 1964), 1:158–61. The manuscripts are reproduced in René de Costa, “Trayectoria del caligrama en Huidobro,” Poesía (Madrid), no. 3(November-December 1978), 29–44.
2. For a detailed study of Tablada’s visual poetry, see Bohn, Modern Visual Poetry, 156–91. The second Latin American to experiment with visual poetry was technically Marius de Zayas, who introduced Tablada to the genre in New York in 1915. However, de Zayas is associated with the history of visual poetry in the United States rather than Latin America. See Willard Bohn, Apollinaire and the International Avant-Garde (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 48–56 and 266–71.
3. Reprinted, like the two following poems, in Luis Quintanilla, Obra poética (Mexico City: Domés, 1986), n.p. The device occurs twice, at the beginning and the end of the poem.
4. Guillaume Apollinaire, Oeuvres poétiques, ed. Marcel Adéma and Michel Décaudin (Paris: Gallimard/Pléiade, 1956), 203.
5. Salvador Novo, Poesía, 1915–1955 (Mexico City: Impresiones Modernas, 1955), n.p.
6. Salvador Novo, “Jarrón,” Prisma (Barcelona) no. 3 (July 1922): 172. Described as a “poema ideográfico,” the poem was originally unpunctuated. The first line was in lowercase letters, the second “Bello” was capitalized, and the last line was in italics.
7. Agustín Loera y Chavez, “La poesía contemporánea mexicana,” Nosotros 55, no. 213 (February 1927): 184. The article is dated “París, 1926.”
8. See Bohn, Modern Visual Poetry, 73–78.
9. Apollinaire, Oeuvres poétiques, 203.
10. The following events are narrated in José María González de Mendoza, Ensayos selectos (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1970), 275–77 and 279–80. Entitled“Los poemas ‘al alimón’ de José D. Frías,” the first selection originally appeared in Revista de Revistas 27, no. 1416 (July 11, 1937).
11. Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in Illuminations, tr. Hannah Arendt (New York: Schocken, 1969), 217–51.
12. We know, for example, that Hidalgo spent the summer of 1920 in the Spanish capital, where he was attracted to the Ultraist movement.
13. Alberto Hidalgo, Química del espíritu (Buenos Aires: Mercatali, 1923).
14. Apollinaire, Oeuvres poétiques, 203.
15. Frantz Fanon, Peau noire, masques blancs (Paris: Seuil, 1952), 5.
16. Thorpe Running, Borges’ Ultraist Movement and Its Poets (Lathrup Village, MI: International Book Publishers, 1981), 131.
17. Oliverio Girondo, Espantapájaros: al alcance de todos (Buenos Aires: Proa, 1932).Repr. in Obra completa, ed. Raúl Antelo (Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg, 1999), plate 15.Judging from the original typescript (reproduced in plate 15), Girondo composed the text first and devised the visual image later. For some reason, the original colored version has been replaced in subsequent editions by another version that differs from it in several respects (see Obra completa, 77). In the latter poem, for example, the four sections are contiguous.
18. Running, Borges’ Ultraist Movement, 129.
19. Jorge Schwartz, “Vanguardias enfrentadas: Oliverio Girondo y la poesía concreta,” in Las vanguardias literarias en Argentina, Uruguay y Paraguay, ed. Carlos García and Dieter Reichardt (Madrid: Iberoamericana and Frankfurt: Vervuert, 2004), 357.
1. Amédée Ozenfant, “Psychotypie & typométrique,” L’Elan, no. 9 (February 1916), inside front cover. Ozenfant claimed to be quoting an article by André Billy.
2. See for example Arthur Cohen, “The Typographic Revolution: Antecedents and Legacy of Dada Graphic Design,” in Dada Spectrum: The Dialectics of Revolt, ed. Stephen Foster and Rudolf Kuenzli (Madison: Coda, 1979), 71–89.
3. Tristan Tzara, “BILAN,” SIC, nos. 49–50 (October 15–30, 1919): 385. Revised and reprinted as “Sels de minuit” in De nos oiseaux (Paris: Kra, 1929) and Oeuvres complètes, ed. Henri Béhar (Paris: Flammarion, 1975), 1:201.
4. Tzara, Oeuvres complètes, 678.
5. André Breton, Oeuvres complètes, ed. Marguerite Bonnet et al. (Paris: Gallimard/Pléiade, 1988), 1:341–43.
6. See Anna Balakian, “Breton in the Light of Apollinaire,” in About French Poetry from Dada to “Tel Quel”: Text and Theory, ed. Mary Ann Caws (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1974), 42–53.
7. See Willard Bohn, The Rise of Surrealism: Cubism, Dada, and the Pursuit of the Marvelous (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), 121–39.
8. Breton, Oeuvres complètes, 1:155–56.
9. Ibid., and André Breton, Clair de terre (Paris: Gallimard: 1966), 47–48. The poem was originally published on facing pages, which poses a similar problem.
10. Michael Riffaterre, Text Production, tr. Terese Lyons (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), 50.
11.Jean Gérard Lapacherie, “Breton critique d’Apollinaire: le calligramme comme bégaiement,” in Que Vlo-Ve?, Bulletin International des Etudes sur Apollinaire, 2nd series, no.14 (April–June 1985): 16–20.
12. At one point, Breton considered naming the poem “Musique.” See Oeuvres complètes, 1195.
13. Guillermo de Torre, Literaturas europeas de vanguardia (Madrid: Rafael Caro Raggio, 1925), 219.
14. Breton, Oeuvres complètes, 1:143–44.
15. Ibid., 1180.
16. Lapacherie, “Breton critique d’Apollinaire,” 18.
17. Breton, Oeuvres complètes, 1:41.
18.Although this resemblance is primarily stylistic, a sonnet beginning “Surgi de la croupe et du bond” (“Risen from the crupper and the bound”) contains references to “une verrerie éphémère” and “le pur vase d’aucun breuvage” (“ephemeral glassware” and “the pure vase of no drink”).
19. Stéphane Mallarmé, letter to Henri Cazalis written in October or November 1864, in Correspondance, ed. Henri Mondor and Jean-Pierre Richard (Paris: Gallimard/Pléiade, 1959), 1:137.
20. Louis Aragon, “L’Homme coupé en deux,” Les Lettres Françaises, no. 1233 (May 9–15, 1968): 9. Alain Chevrier analyzes another visual poem from Clair de Terre in “Sur un poème typographique d’André Breton,” Mélusine: Cahiers du Centre de Recherche sur le Surréalisme, no. 26 (2006): 229–45.
21. See Giovanni Lista, “Les Caractères du ‘Futurisme Français’ à travers l’oeuvre de Pierre Albert-Birot,” in Présence de Marinetti, ed. Jean-Claude Marcadé (Lausanne: L’Age d’Homme, 1982), 156–75; Arlette Albert-Birot, “Pierre Albert-Birot, ‘Sic’ et le futurisme,” Europe, Vol. 53, no. 551 (March 1975): 98–104; and Germana Cerenza Orlandi,“Pierre Albert-Birot, un surrealista fuori del ‘Castello,’ ” Quaderni del Novecento Francese, no. 2 (1974): 75–95.
22. Guillaume Apollinaire, “Poèmepréface prophétie,” Oeuvres poétiques, ed. Marcel Adéma and Michel Décaudin (Paris: Gallimard/Pléiade, 1965), 684. See also “Un poème,”p. 360.
23. Jean Follain, Pierre Albert-Birot (Paris: Seghers, 1967), 22.
24. David W. Seaman, Concrete Poetry in France (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1981), 184.
25. Pierre Albert-Birot, Poésie 1916–1924 (Paris: Gallimard, 1967), 337.
26. Debra Kelly, “From Painter to Poet: The Visual Poetry of Pierre Albert-Birot in La Lune ou le livre des poèmes, ” Forum for Modern Language Studies 32, no. 1 (January 1996): 40.
27. Seaman, Concrete Poetry in France, 184.
28. Ibid., 186.
29. Guillaume Apollinaire, Oeuvres en prose complètes, ed. Pierre Caizergues and Michel Décaudin (Paris: Gallimard/Pléiade, 1991), 2:18.
30. Guillaume Apollinaire, “Merveille de la guerre,” Oeuvres poétiques, ed. Adéma and Décaudin, 271.
1. Manifesto della Aeropittura, September 22, 1929. Signed by Marinetti and eight Futurist painters.
2.See for example Enrico Crispolti, Aeropittura futurista aeropittori (Modena: Fonte d’Abisso, 1985); Bruno Mantura and Patrizia Rosazza Ferraris, Futurism in Flight: “Aero-pittura” Paintings and Sculptures of Man’s Conquest of Space (1913–1945) (Rome: De Luca, 1990); and Massimo Duranti, Aeropittura e aeroscultura futuriste (San Sisto: Effe, 2002).
3. F. T. Marinetti, Manifesto dell’aeropoesia, La Gazzetta del Popolo, October 22, 1931. A French version was published in Stile Futurista 1, no. 3 (September 1934).
4. Claudia Salaris, Storia del futurismo: libri, giornali, manifesti, rev. ed. (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1992), 226.
5. Ignazio Scurto, “VOLO SU TRAÙ,” Futurismo 1, no. 16 (1932).
6. F. T. Marinetti, preface to Tavole parolibere, by Pino Masnata (Rome: “Poesia,” 1932. Quoted in Pino Masnata, Poesia visiva: storia e teoria (Rome: Bulzoni, 1984), 182.Several of the compositions are reprinted on pp. 329–40.
7. Pino Masnata, “AEROPLANI,” Futurismo, April 16, 1933. Later included in Canti fascisti della metropoli verde (Milan: Morreale, 1935). Repr. in Masnata, Poesia visiva, 363
8. Masnata, Poesia visiva, 185.
9. See Claudio G. Segre, Italo Balbo: A Fascist Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).
10. F. T. Marinetti, Manifesto tecnico della letteratura futurista, May 11, 1912.
11. Amedeo Astori, ed., Mostra antologica di Tullio Crali (Trieste: Azienda Autonoma di Soggiorno e Turismo, 1976), 96.
12. Tullio Crali, preface to Alla XXII Biennale internazionale d’arte trionfa la mostra personale di Crali (Venice, 1940).
13. Tullio Crali, “Altalenando sulle isole dalmate,” ibid. Repr. in Crali: aeropittorefuturista (Milan: All’Insegna del Pesce d’Oro, 1988), 72.
1. For a study of Concrete poetry in general, see Bohn, Modern Visual Poetry, 232–55.
2. See ibid., p. 233.
3. Augusto de Campos, Décio Pignatari, and Haroldo de Campos, “planopilôto para poesia concreta,” Noigandres, no. 4 (1958). Repr. in Concrete Poetry: A World View, ed. Mary Ellen Solt (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1970), 70–71. The translation is my own.
4. See Claus Clüver, “Klangfarbenmelodie in Polychromatic Poems: A. von Webern and A. de Campos,” Comparative Literature Studies 18, no. 3 (September 1981): 386–98.
5. Three of the poems in this series are reproduced on the poet’s Web site at www2.uol.com.br/augustodecampos/poemas.htm.
6. De Campos, Pignatari, and de Campos, “planopilôto para poesia concreta,” in Solt, Concrete Poetry, 70.
7. Augusto de Campos, Poesia 1949–1979 (São Paulo: Duas Cidades, 1979), n.p. The other poems examined in this chapter are also taken from this volume.
8. Augusto de Campos, “Points-Periphery-Concrete Poetry,” Jornal do Brasil, November 11, 1956. Tr. by Jon M. Tolman and repr. in The Avant-Garde Tradition in Literature, ed. Richard Kostelanetz (Buffalo: Prometheus, 1982), 263.
9. One of four types of Concrete poetry identified by the “plano-piloto.” See Bohn, Modern Visual Poetry, 237.
10. Solt, Concrete Poetry, 254.
11. Clüver, “Klangfarbenmeolodie, ” 395–96. He describes the recording in detail.
12. De Campos, “Points-Periphery-Concrete Poetry,” 260.
13. Quoted in Michael Webster, Reading Visual Poetry after Futurism: Marinetti, Apollinaire, Schwitters, Cummings (New York: Lang, 1995), 147.
14. De Campos, Pignatari, and de Campos, “plano-pilôto para poesia concreta,” in Solt, Concrete Poetry, 71.
15. Quoted in Emmett Williams, An Anthology of Concrete Poetry (New York: Something Else Press, 1967), n.p.
16. Solt, Concrete Poetry: A World View, p. 7.
17. Quoted in Williams, Concrete Poetry.
18. Solt, Concrete Poetry, 62.
19. De Campos, “Points-Periphery-Concrete Poetry,” 259.
20. K. David Jackson, “Haroldo de Campos and the Poetics of Invention,” in Haroldo de Campos: A Dialogue with the Brazilian Concrete Poet, ed. K. David Jackson (Oxford: Oxford University Centre for Brazilian Studies, 2005), 18.
21. K. Alfons Knauth, “Palabrás: The Haroldic Emblem,” in Experimental—Visual—Concrete: Avant-Garde Poetry Since the 1960s, ed. K. David Jackson, Eric Vos, and Johanna Drucker (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996), 157.
22. Solt, Concrete Poetry, 13.
23. De Campos, Pignatari, and de Campos, “plano-pilôto,” in Solt, Concrete Poetry, 71.
24. Haroldo de Campos, Xadrez de estrelas: percurso textual 1949–1974 (São Paulo: Perspectiva, 1976), n.p. The other poems examined in this chapter are also taken from this volume.
25. Philadelpho Menezes, Poetics and Visuality: A Trajectory of Contemporary Brazilian Poetry, tr. Harry Polkinhorn (San Diego: San Diego State University Press, 1994), 25.
26. Claus Clüver, “Reflections on Verbivocovisual Ideograms,” Poetics Today 3, no. 3(1982), p. 138.
27. Claus Clüver, “Concrete Poetry: Critical Perspectives from the 90s,” in Experimental—Visual—Concrete, ed. Jackson, Vos, and Drucker, 272.
28. Quoted in Williams, Concrete Poetry.
29. Stuart Flexner and Doris Flexner, Wise Words and Wives’ Tales: The Origins, Meanings, and Time-Honored Wisdom of Proverbs and Folk Sayings Olde and New (New York: Avon, 1993).
30. For two additional interpretations, see Marjorie Perloff, “Concrete Prose in the Nineties: Harold de Campos’s Galáxias and After,” in Haroldo de Campos, ed. Jackson, 141.
31. See the diagram at the website, http://cstwww.nrl.navy.mil/lattice/struk/Te.html.
32. Décio Pignatari, Poesia pois é poesia, 1950–1975 (São Paulo: Duas Cidades, 1977), 84.
33. Iumna Maria Simon and Vinicius Dantas, Poesia concreta (São Paulo: April, 1982), n.p.
34. José Lino Grünewald, Escreviver (Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 1987), 66. The other poems examined in this chapter are also taken from this volume.
1. Johanna Drucker, “Experimental, Visual, and Concrete Poetry: A Note on Historical Context and Basic Concepts,” in Experimental—Visual—Concrete, ed. Jackson, Vos, and Drucker, 58.
2. Giselle Beiguelman, “Nomadic Poems,” in Media Poetry: An International Anthology, ed. Eduardo Kac (Bristol: Intellect Books, 2007), 99.
3. Eduardo Kac, “From ASCII to Cyberspace: A Trajectory in Digital Poetry,” in Kac, Media Poetry, 45. Cited in the text hereafter as MP.
4. Kac is quick to distinguish between these two modes. Unless one has experienced a video composition in its original state, he declares, it is difficult to appreciate the difference that computerization introduces. “Which is to say,” he continues, “that most works explore/produce different modalities of spatiotemporal experiences (including, runtime, loop, interactive, navigational, multiuser, etc.). In some cases I even use light semantically” (conversation with the author May 21, 2009). Although most of the works discussed here were originally video installations, computerized versions may be viewed at www.ekac.org/multimedia.html. Cited in the text henceforth as “EKAC.“
5. Eduardo Kac, conversation with the author May 5, 2009.
6. J. E. Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols, tr. Jack Sage, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge Kegan Paul, 1971), 2.
1. Johanna Drucker, The Visible Word: Experimental Typography and Modern Art, 1909–1923 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 10.
2. Rudolf Arnheim, Visual Thinking (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 233–34.
3. Betty Edwards, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, rev. ed. (New York: Putnam, 1989), 30.
4. J. E. Bogen, “Some Educational Aspects of Hemisphere Specialization,” UCLA Educator, No. 17 (1975), 24–32.
5. For example, a camera’s adjustable aperture is called an “iris.”
6. Concerning the “duck-rabbit” conundrum, see W. J. T. Mitchell, Picture Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 45–57. For the second example, see Edwards, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, 46.
7. Arnheim, Visual Thinking, 14.
8. Edwards, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, 30.
9. Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception, 46.