Content
answering the question [What is visual poetry?] one full-color chapbook at a time
26 March 2012 -
Filed under
Germany + Jorgensen, Alexander + male
Alexander Jorgensen is a writer, visual artist, teacher, and adventurer. He has lived and worked in such disparate places as Germany, the Czech Republic, the Galapagos, China, Kazakhstan, and Oman. His visual poetry and writings have appeared in Van Gogh’s Ear, Drunken Boat, Shampoo, Listenlight, Noon: Journal of the Short Poem, Moria, Big Bridge, Sous Rature, and The Return of Kral Majales: Prague’s International Literary Renaissance 1990-2010. His visual poems have been exhibited in Toronto, Atlanta, Moscow, Prague, and at the 2011 Text Festival in Manchester, UK. He was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2008.
Alexander says of his work: “It is hybrid, combining aspects of analogue and digital design. Each poem manifests its own appearance. My work is influenced by extensive travel as well as my underlying values. What’s most important to me as I construct a visual poem is that it shows intention, that I am saying, ‘Here we are.’”
16 full-color pages. $10 (+ s/h)
7 March 2012 -
Filed under
male + Pyrih, Roman + Ukraine
Роман Пиріг (Юрай) народився в 1977 році у Львові й сприймає це як покликання. Пробуджений бентежним невідомим, багато років тому він розпочав свою зречену подорож у пошуках магічного еліксиру поезії. Наука не відає, чи була ця виправа успішною, але невичерпним джерелом натхнення стало для Юрая відкриття у 2008 році загадкового світу паліндромної лірики. Тривалий час працював у В’єтнамі. Живе у Нью-Делі, Індія.
Публікувався у книзі «Антологія українського самвидаву. 2000-2004» («Буква і Цифра», 2005). Є автором збірки паліндромної поезії «ШЕ» («AjnaG», 2011).
Книга візуальних паліндромів Юрая присвячується славному цеху українських поетів паліндромного ремесла.
Roman says: “Yurai is Ukrainian poet-palindromist, diplomat and humble student of ancient knowledge.
“His experiments with palindromes were inspired and heavily based on Ukrainian palindrome tradition dating back to the texts of mystic Kyiv poet of the XVII century Ivan Velychkovskyi , who is also considered grand contributor to the development of Ukrainian visual poetry. In XX century Ukrainian palindrome was greatly invigorated and brought to a new level by outstanding efforts of renowned masters – Ivan Iov, Ivan Luchuk, Nazar Gonchar and others.
“What distinguishes Yurai’s creations is that he gradually departed from palindrome as a text and visualized it as a graphic artwork. This was a natural drift, manifested at first as side effect of illustrating palindrome poems, and gradually evolved into self-sufficient art. This mirroring fusion of symbol, meaning and their graphic interpretation is aimed to complete restless sensory quest of perception and perfection, and is to point to the reality outside, beyond and trance all the imperfectness, which can not be fully expressed by any means of common art, except those of religious nature.”
16 full-color pages. $10 (+ s/h)
22 February 2012 -
Filed under
male + Ukraine + Uncategorized + Zarichnyi, Michael
Michael Zarichnyi (1958) is a professor of mathematics at the Lviv University (Ukraine). His interests include not only geometry and topology of infinite-dimensional manifolds but also poetry, music and visual/concrete poetry. He is the author of one book of poetry, about 60 songs, and about 50 visual works. Personal exhibition of the visual/concrete poetry (Lviv University Gallery, 2011). The works are often minimalistic, inspired by beauty of mathematical constructions.
16 full-color pages. $10 (+ s/h)
17 November 2011 -
Filed under
female + Litvak, Sveta + Russia
Sveta Litvak has studied at Ivanovo art school. Lives in Moscow. Had some personal exhibitions at ZVEREV center of modern art. Poet well-known in literary underground, member of Moscow club “POEZIA”, the author of several books. Some poems are translated by American, English, Serbian and Romanian poets. The organizer and artist of Club of literary performance, issues a samizdat magazine of literature and art. Works in mail art, book art, visual poetry, video. The participant of Art-Festivals in Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Serbia, Romania.
Sveta says: “Exercises for attentive or superficial view and for inner speech also. Most of them want to be ritual. Sometimes they look like schemes and sometimes like a dance.”
“Перед вами – чистая практика без теории. Гимнастика изобразительных форм и лингвистических поз. Упражнения для внимательного и поверхностного взгляда, а также внутренней речи. Они по преимуществу ритуальны. Иногда это схема, иногда – танец.”
16 full-color pages. $10 (+ s/h)
27 September 2011 -
Filed under
Giovenale, Marco + Italy + male
Marco Giovenale lives in Rome. He’s editor of http://gammm.org. His most recent book of (linear) poems in Italian is Shelter (Donzelli, 2010). His artbooks are Sibille asemantiche (Camera verde, 2008) and, under the name of Differx, aweapon (2008), Severe red (2010), unrelated | undepicted | (diptychs) (2010), and septemware (2011), all by Vugg Books. Some sibyls are also in the Anthology Spidertangle (Xexoxial, 2009). A gunless tea, collection of 23 prose pieces, was published for the 2007 Dusi/e-chap project (dusie.org.) The prose CDK was published in 2009 by Tir aux pigeons. An interview is here: http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-65-marco-giovenale. For more information, please visit: http://slowforward.wordpress.com/bioen/.
Credits: One image has been previously published in The New Postliterate, and one in Fieralingue, thanks to Michael Jacobson, and Anny Ballardini. Author photo by Francesca Valente.
Marco says: “This book offers a variety of tablets or frames/plates of asemic writing: in cursive or glyphs style.
My opinion is that asemic writing is a major path leading out of the western logos legacy. Generally speaking, twisted signs or tiny glyphs like these ones can be left alone on the page, unrecorded or not; and they (try to) bring on — even in this way — their peculiar anti-discourse, set out of the common sense and the shared meanings.
Then they (or their images) can also be involved in a process of further change(s), passing through a thousand digital doors — facing some sort of multiverse. It’s something you can perceive in most of these pages.
Such glyphs seem they want to stand as signs of a possible wider change: a shift in the writer’s mind, and the reader’s eye. The former will be ready to abandon the power of language, the pre-written codes of the meanings’ dictatorship; the latter will try to do his/her best in dealing with such a lack of known coordinates, alphabets, recognizable lines of speech, in order to catch the weird non-melodic phrases in an area of new graphic entities.
Many of the asemic sibyls and glyphs I drawrite fade in the black side of the sheet, they leave the trace of a trace, in the reader/viewer’s mind. He is no more a spectator, nor someone in need of convictions and fixed “omega” goals and targets. He is — we are — free to simply enjoy the faint passing of those traces. (Their fair impermanence).”
16 full-color pages. $10 (+ s/h)
30 August 2011 -
Filed under
male + neiva, bruno + Portugal
bruno neiva is a Portuguese writer, poet and artist. He has published several chapbooks, such as: “early-natttura”, “polar coordinates and N2OC10H12″, “sad items”, “natttura1-7″, “Nuvem Ruim”, “o livro das minhas proezas de pesca 1-8″, “Samples 17-24.”, “Samples 9-16″ and “Samples 1-8″. His work can also be found in magazines / e-zines: otoliths, BlazeVox, moria, ditch, The Anemone Sidecar and Word For/Word. So far, he has held 3 exhibitions: “asemicdraftsone”, “nuisance series” and “2/4 séries”.
http://umaestruturaassimsempudor.blogspot.com/
bruno neiva says: “I build sober structures: constrained, classical. One word? Detachment.”
16 full-color pages. $10 (+ s/h)
29 August 2011 -
Filed under
Italy + male + Sannelli, Massimo
Massimo Sannelli. Born: 1973, 27th November. I live in Genoa, Italy. I try to follow what I think it’s the better way to live. So I’m a writer and an artist; a translator and an actor always working with voice(s). That’s all. When I make these visual poems or electronic drawings, I’d like to force my mind to be a better communicator of the inner self. These poems are created by a normal word-processor, in order to be as light as children are. That’s all the power I can use, it’s not a great one, and I like it.
Massimo says: “this IS DONE, and that IS DONE, another thing is TO DO, later: theater, music, art, translations, poetry, performance. i don’t know the *direction* of my work(s). the absolute and invisible Work is filled of works: the first is abstract, the others do exist. all is real. the mind quotes itself. there’s the real gorgeous practical wish to look for real gorgeous practical happyness. nothing but fragments of an invisible mind-poem I’d like to share with people. we can help each other to be more self-aware. feel free to email me: massimo.sannelli@gmail.com”
16 full-color pages. $10 (+ s/h)
27 March 2011 -
Filed under
male + Singapore + Zhicheng-Mingdé, Desmond Kon
Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé adores Jackson Pollock. He first conflated Cubist and Abstract Expressionist sensibilities in “One Line About the Sea”, a mixed media canvas of charcoal, graphite and metal he created for the closing event of the Singapore Writers Festival in 2009. An interdisciplinary artist, Desmond also works in clay, his commemorative pieces housed in museums and private collections in India, the Netherlands, the UK and the US. He has edited more than ten books and co-produced three audio books, several pro bono for non-profit organizations. He sporadically works on an on-going project of recasting his early 1990s illustrations into what he calls Linearte Poems.
Desmond says: “In 2005, I subjected myself to several bouts of binge drinking to achieve more authentic streams of consciousness. Fragments written during that time appear in these images, which cast the poetic line against the geometric. There are allusions to drip painting but made angular and planar. Boxed. Staggered. A flattened texture. Icy and thin.”
16 full-color pages. $10 (+ s/h)
27 March 2011 -
Filed under
female + Huth, NF + USA
NF Huth’s textual work has appeared in Listenlight, The Literary Review, Philadelphia Poets, CWM, and others. Her visual poetry was featured at The New Post-Literate, and her book of visual poetry, sansound, was published by dbqp. LAUGHING/OUCH/CUBE will publish her first book of poems. She publishes found sound at Click Buzz Chirp, and photographic images that are both pointy and blue at Pointy Blue.
This series, A Space for It, uses photos she took in 2009 at the Saari Residence and at Turku Castle, Finland, in Manchester, U.K., and on East Caroga Lake, New York. The icicles are from a 2011 photograph taken in Schenectady, New York.
Author photo by Geof Huth.
Nancy says: “These poems are about empty places, leaving space for the reader to participate.”
16 full-color pages. $10 (+ s/h)
16 February 2011 -
Filed under
Italy + male + Vitacchio, Alberto
Born in 1942 in Torino where he still lives. During the 80’s he began working on Visual and Sound Poetry and, at the same time, started doing performances usually with Carla Bertola, working on the idea of “Stagepoetry actions”. He performed widely in Italy and different countries. In Visual Poetry he usually works on collages following a personal technique obtaining color from the surface of paper, a procedure he called “pulling up”; recently he is using blowing up from fragments passing through photos and then laser copies. He has taken part in many exhibitions in Italy and abroad. Since 1978 he is co-editor of the International Poetry Magazine Offerta Speciale.
Alberto says: “My works have their origin in a particular kind of collage technique, some fragments of the original works have been photographed and reworked with laser xerox and form the basis for other works. Letters are important for their graphical form but frequently contain a kind of meaning. All this is the work of a visual poet and of course the origin is language.”
16 full-color pages. $10 (+ s/h)
