George Herbert, Easter Wings/ The Temple (1633)
More about historical visual poetry: How do we define Visual Poetry (and letter-inspired art) by Phillip John Usher
“Our understanding of visual poetry means that words and letters become plastic; they are (perhaps) also signifiers, but they are first and foremost objects: they “are” before they “mean,” suggesting they take on a life of their own. And yet words and letters never totally escape their linguistic sounds and meanings-hence the games our mind plays when we view visual poetry, caught-as it is-between different ways of viewing. It’s a bifurcated road: should I read, or should I see? How do letters and words get in the way? How do they confuse (in the strongest sense) the image?”
Tags: concrete poetry, visual poetry
word and image 
March 26, 2010 at 1:28 am |
Sadly, the link to what sounds a very interesting file does not work. I also think it’s a good example of why we can’t really call Easter Wings a visual poem, since it is first and foremost words, not objects. One overcomes the object in this piece almost immediately.