BEYOND WESTERN ALPHABETS: SIGNS, SYMBOLS, CHARACTERS, GLYPHS
Many practitioners felt that the visual orientation of experimental poetry was uniquely poised to transcend the languages and nationalities of specific countries. As such, it developed a reputation as a truly international movement that made use of symbols, signs, codes, and other non-alphabetic elements, and promoted experimental work in languages that used scripts or character systems, such as Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and Korean. Seiichi Niikuni, editor of ASA, highlighted work he felt liberated language from its burden of use in society, and other groups in Japan, such as the club and magazine, VOU, pioneered experimental projects such as photo-poems. Indigenous forms of communication were also important to visual and concrete poets—and particularly sound poets, whose work occurred in an oral tradition.
Alfredo Slang, Joh. W. Glaw, Dobrica Kamperelic, John M. Bennett, et al.
Mail Art Show: Visual Poetry.
N.p., [1992].
Displayed is work by Clemente Padín and Luce Fierens.
Cover by Christian Dotremont. This Georgian language catalog was printed in Tbilisi, Georgia. Contributors include Enrico Aresu, Vittore Baroni, John M. Bennett, Alexander Bubnov, Maggie Burchuladze, Luce Fierens, César Figueiredo, Joh. W. Glaw, Ruud Janssen, Dobrica Kamperelić, Rora Kamperelić, Pascal Lenoir, Ruggero Maggi, Andrea Ovcinnicoff, Clemente Padín, Daniel Plunkett, K.A. Seckman, Alfredo Slang, and Maria Zatselapina, among others.
Buzz Spector, Reagan Upshaw, and Roberta Upshaw, eds.
WhiteWalls, no. 5.
Winter 1981.
Displayed is work by Agnes Denes.
This special issue serves as a catalog for the exhibition “Words as Images,” held at The Renaissance Society at The University of Chicago, February 4–28, 1981. Contributors include Terry Allen, Arakawa, Dotty Attie, Steven Beyer, Carole Caroompas, Agnes Denes, Vernon Fisher, Rosemary Mayer, Jim Melchert, George Miller, Austé Peciura, Lucio Pozzi, Ed Ruscha, Alexis Smith, Michelle Stuart, and William T. Wiley.
Hannah Weiner.
Code Poems: From The International Code of Signals for the Use of All Nations.
Open Book, 1982.
The companion piece to Weiner’s earlier Signal Flag Poems. Described by Jerome Rothenberg as “visual-verbal possibilities of coded language.”
Hannah Weiner.
Signal Flag Poems.
Letter Edged in Black Press, 1968.
A precursor to Weiner’s related project, Code Poems: From the International Code of Signals for the Use of All Nations (Open Book, 1982), these poems were derived from “a visual signal system for ships at sea,” as described in the 1857, 1899, and 1931 editions of the “International Code of Signals for the Use of All Nations” (from the colophon). The book contains inserts for a volvelle (a wheel-like slide chart) to be assembled by the reader.
Herman Deman.
[Braille-Pouim].
N.p., 1968.
This poem has been embossed with the braille alphabet, which is a series of raised patterns to be read by the fingertips of blind or visually-impaired individuals. The poem primarily uses the letter “w” in the braille alphabet in a repeating pattern; in the center of the line third from the bottom of the page, the word “white” is spelled out, evoking the monochrome of the page itself.
Jerome Rothenberg and Dennis Tedlock, eds.
Alcheringa, vol. 1, no. 1.
Fall 1970.
Cover painting by Larry Bird. Per Rothenberg, the magazine was published to be a “place where tribal poetry can appear in English translation & can act (in the oldest & newest of poetic traditions) to change men’s minds & lives.” Many poems are anonymous and translated from preserved “tribal/oral” poetry. Contributing editors include Kofi Awoonor, Ulli Beier, Stanley Diamond, Dell Hymes, David P. McAllester, Gary Snyder, and Nathaniel Tarn.
Jerome Rothenberg, ed.
New Wilderness Letter, nos. 5/6.
New Wilderness Foundation, 1978.
Displayed is a Navajo eye-dazzler blanket pattern, and translation by Karl Young.
Diane Rothenberg served as managing editor and Barbara Einzig as associate editor for New Wilderness Letter. Jerome Rothenberg described the magazine as a place for experiencing “the wilderness of language & mind, time & space,” and this issue focused on “writing/reading…as co-existent with human origins.”
Miroljub Todorović, ed.
Signal, nos. 2–3.
September 1971.
Displayed is work by Miroljub Todorović.
The magazine was published as the “International Review for Signalist Research” from Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Contributors include Marina Abramović, Brank Aleksić, Jean-François Bory, Luciano Caruso, Bob Cobbing, Peter Finch, John Furnival, Michael Gibbs, Robert Joseph, Maurizio Nannucci, Nahl Nucha, Zvonimir Kostić Palanski, Michele Perfetti, G.J. de Rook, Maurizio Spatola, Balint Szombathy, Miroljub Todorović, Vujica Rešin Tucić, Pierre Vandrepote, and Ivo Vroom, among others.
Miroljub Todorović, ed.
Signal, nos. 8–9.
January 1973.
Cover by Klaus Groh. Contributors include Marina Abramović, Jeremy Adler, Valter Aue, Julien Blaine, Oskar Davićo, Klaus Peter Dencker, Nuša I Srećo Dragan, On Kawara, Richard Kostelanetz, Sol Lewitt, Peter Mayer, Peda Nešaković, Nikola Stojanović, Vlada Stojiljković, and Raša Todosijević, among others.
Seiichi Niikuni, ed.
ASA, no. 3.
1968.
ASA was an influential Japanese magazine for concrete and visual poetry, and frequently contained translations of Japanese works into English. This issue translates the “Tokyo Manifesto for Spatialism” by Seiichi Niikuni from that same year into English, which includes the rallying statement: “I must, and will liberate material and energy of words from origin of the language to cosmic philosophy.” Contributors include Augusto de Campos, Haroldo de Campos, Hansjörg Mayer, Adriano Spatola, Edgardo Antonio Vigo, and Shoji Yoshizawa, among many others.
Seiichi Niikuni, ed.
ASA, vol. 5, no. 5.
1971.
Contributors include Alain Arias-Misson, Julien Blaine, Jean-François Bory, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Pierre Garnier, Jochen Gerz, Harry Guest, Yutaka Ishii, Hideo Kajino, Hiro Kamimura, Hideharu Miura, Yoshio Murui, Seiichi Niikuni, Claudio Parmiggiani, John Sharkey, Chima Sunada, Hiroshi Tanabe, Paul de Vree, Ryojiro Yamanaka, and Shoji Yoshizawa, among others.
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Taii Ashizawa and Takehisa Kosugi, guest eds.
Japanese Schmuck, no. 8.
Beau Geste Press, Spring 1976.
Displayed are works by Yukimasa Matsuda and Ikuo Shukazawa.
This was the eighth and final issue of David Mayor, Martha Hellion, and Felipe Ehrenberg’s magazine, with the help of guest-editors Taii Ashizawa and Takehisa Kosugi in Japan. Hideki Yoshida’s book 1971.7.4 P.M. 2:00 – 4:00 is tipped in on the inside of the back cover. Contributors include Shoji Kaneko, Kiichi Kobayashi, Kunimasa Kuriyama, Art Duck/Terry Reid, Takako Saito, Rui Sekido, Yukiko Shimazaki, Mieko Shiomi, Yoshiyuki Sunohara, Shinkiji Tajiri, and Kodo Tanaqua, among others.
Shoji Yoshizawa, ed.
Shi Shi: Concrete & Visual Poetry, no. 2.
May 1981.
Displayed is work by Shoji Yoshizawa.
Cover by Hideo Kajino. Shoji Yoshizawa was published in ASA in the mid-1960s, and edited Shi Shi from 1981 to 1993. One area of focus for his practice was the exploration of Kanji characters and their potential for abstraction into sculptural forms. Additional contributors include Hideo Kajino, Ryojiro Yamanaka, and Shoji Yoshizawa.