“I think we will always have the impulse towards visual poetry with us, and I wouldn't agree with Bly that it's a bad thing. It depends on the ability of the individual poet to do it well, and to make a shape which is interesting enough to hold your attention.” ThinkingWellsEnoughIndividualAbilityInterestingAttentionPoetDependsShapesAgreeImpulseVisualsBad Things Author:James Laughlin
“Concrete poets continue to turn out beautiful things, but to me they're more visual than oral, and they almost really belong on the wall rather than in a book. I haven't the least idea of where poetry is going.” BookIdeasBeautifulTurnsHavensPoetWallVisualsPoetry IsConcreteBeautiful Things Author:James Laughlin
“The way something looks or sounds is also what it means. Words as visual and aural phenomena, which mainly poets, not critics and prose writers, tend to be obsessed with. I think maybe I'm more of a curator than I am a writer in the strict sense because I am interested in how everything on the page, in a space, works together.” ThinkingWayLooksMeanTogetherSoundSpacePoetPagesCriticsObsessedVisualsProseWorking TogetherStrictCuratorMean Words Author:Masha Tupitsyn
“I have no idea, actually, where I fit in, in terms of poetry camps. At AWP conferences, I have been on panels about humor, collaboration, visual poetry, confessional poetry, gender, and the body, as well as tributes to Edward Field and Albert Goldbarth. I felt at home on all of them - most poets straddle more than one school.” WellsHas BeensIdeasHomeBodySchoolFeltTermFieldsPoetFitGenderNo IdeaVisualsCollaborationCampsConferencesTribute Author:Denise Duhamel
“Khairani Barokka is a writer, spoken-word poet, visual artist and performer whose work has a strong vein of activism, particularly around disability, but also how this intersects with, for example, issues of gender - she's campaigned for reproductive rights in her native Indonesian, and is currently studying for a PhD in disability and visual cultures at Goldsmiths. She's written a feminist, environmentalist, anti-colonialist narrative poem, with tactile artwork and a Braille translation. How could I not publish that?” ArtistCultureStrongStudyIssuesRightsWrittenExamplePoetFeministGenderActivismNarrativeVisualsNativePerformersDisabilityVeinsPublishTranslationsArtworkEnvironmentalistSpoken WordVisual ArtPhdsTactileReproductive RightsVisual ArtistBraille Author:Deborah Smith
“I know that in some ways I operate from a kind of antiquated interest in imagery, while many contemporary poets are not so interested in imagery. I think part of it is my training, and just my visual sense of things.” ThinkingKnowsWayKindInterestPoetTrainingContemporaryVisualsImagery Author:Martha Ronk
“I had this idea for a long time to make a film about a poet in Paterson named Patterson. I wanted him to be working class. Eventually I thought a bus was a perfect visual way to move him, to drift him through the city, to have a measured kind of routine lifestyle. And all these things kind of congealed into the film "Paterson" eventually.” WayKindLongIdeasWantedFilmMovingPerfectCitiesClassPoetLong TimeLifestyleVisualsRoutineBusWorking Class Author:Jim Jarmusch
“Backlock, a poet blind from his birth, could describe visual objects with accuracy; Professor Sanderson, who was also blind, gave excellent lectures on color, and taught others the theory of ideas which they had and he had not. In the social sphere these gifted ones are mostly women; they can watch a world which they never saw, and estimate forces of which they have only heard. We call it intuition.” WorldIdeasForceSocialWatchesSawsHeardObjectsTaughtColorPoetTheoryBirthBlindIntuitionExcellentVisualsProfessorsSpheresGiftedLecturesAccuracy Author:Thomas Hardy