EXPERIMENTAL TYPOGRAPHY: LETTERING & THE VISUAL POEM
The history of concrete and visual poetry is deeply entwined with typography and typeface design, which govern the way that printed words appear on a page. Typographic design after World War Two was an especially charged theme, with the “classic” serif typefaces juxtaposing “modern” or even futuristic sans-serif typefaces. Yet from the earliest days of printing, metal type was arranged in a painstaking process on a grid format. Typewriters—a much easier tool for composing—also adhered to a grid-like notion of the page, with text proceeding in straight lines separated by grammatical notations. Concrete and visual poets saw these conventions as creative opportunities, from John Furnival’s tottering architectures of letters and words in the shape of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, to Susan Howe’s projective lines.
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[Hansjörg Mayer, ed.].
Sammelband Futura, nos. 1 and 2.
Edition Hansjörg Mayer, 1965–1968.
Displayed are works by Frieder Nake and Augusto de Campos.
In de Campos’ Luxo Lixo, he creates the Portuguese word for “trash” out of a pattern of the word for “luxury,” commenting on the nature of luxury goods. Sammelband Futura was a two-volume collection of 26 loose folded broadsides, featuring an array of concrete and visual work in the typeface Futura. Futura, like other sans-serif typefaces, had strong connections to postwar international avant-gardes.
Aram Saroyan, ed.
Lines, no. 6.
1965.
Displayed is work by John Furnival.
The final issue of Saroyan’s little magazine, this issue demonstrates the intersection between the second-generation New York School poets and experimental visual poets abroad. Furnival’s works include what might be called influential “leaning towers of language,” evoking the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Tower of Babel with increasingly fragmented typeset words that both build and dismantle the architecture they evoke.
Franco Beltrametti, ed.
Mini, no. 11.
Scorribanda Productions, 1989.
This little magazine was Xeroxed as a single sheet, featuring a grid-like collage of all contributions, including work by Gianfranco Baruchello, Franco Beltrametti, Julien Blaine, Bill Brown, Corrado Costa, Fortuna, Joël Hubaut, Pierre Joris, Arnaud Labelle-Rojoux, Barbara Moore, Gigliola Nocera, Al Pavl, Claude Pélieu, Tom Raworth, Anonimo Salso, Demetrio Stratos, and Dario Villa.
Guy Schraenen, ed.
Libellus, no. 5.
February 1981.
Displayed is work by Charles Bernstein and Ben Vautier, among others identified in a numerical key at the bottom right of the page spread.
This “monthly mail-art publication” (per its subtitle) is a large collage of 39 contributor’s works, attributed by number. Contributors include Dan Barber, Charles Bernstein, Robert Filliou, Uwe Gobel, Richard Kostelanetz, and Gabor Toth, among many others.
Ian Hamilton Finlay.
Sea-Poppy 2 (Fishing Boat Names).
Wild Hawthorn Press, 1968.
Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Wild Hawthorn Press (founded in 1961) provided a platform for his work with a wide range of collaborating artists, photographers, printers, calligraphers, and designers, encompassing books and booklets, cards and folding cards, poems/prints, proposals, and other publications. His work often evokes pastoral and nautical themes amidst the natural world, such as this poem-card that prints fishing boat names in the pattern of sea poppy petals. The card is printed on both sides, typeset by Peter Grant.
Karl Kempton, ed.
Kaldron, no. 10.
Winter 1980.
Displayed is work by A De Araújo, Giulia Niccolai, Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt, and Betty Danon.
Other contributors include Bill Gaglione, Marcelo Dolabela, John Furnival, Jesus Romeo Galdámez, Scott Helmes, Paula Hocks, Hideo Kajino, Karl Kempton, Giulia Niccolai, Ronald Prost, Karen Shaw, Adriano Spatola, Constantin Xenakis, and Shoji Yoshizawa.
Keith Rahmmings, ed.
Blank Tape, no. 1.
1977.
Displayed are “diamond” poems by Keith Rahmmings.
These pattern poems use columns of five-letter and four-letter words, often alphabetically or associatively clustered, to create shapes over several pages of the magazine. Other contributors include John M. Bennett, Orlan Cannon, Jack Grady, Ken Saville, and Karl Young.
Robert Lax.
4 Boats 3 People.
Tarasque Press, N.d.
Screenprinted by Tarasque Press, the Nottingham, England-based press and magazine founded by poet Stuart Mills in 1964 and of which poet Simon Cutts was a prominent associate. In the exhibition titled “Visual Poetics: Concrete Poetry and its Contexts” (MOCA Brisbane, 1989), curator Nicholas Zurbrugg notes that Lax tends to “work with light and dark images, and with primary colours, in order to attempt to register ‘some verbal equivalent to things that [he] was seeing inside.’”
Robert Lax.
Journeyman, no. 12.
1975.
Designed and illustrated by Emil Antonucci. Lax embodied many of the beautiful paradoxes of postwar poetics; he was admired by Thomas Merton and Jack Kerouac, lived as a hermit in Greece, worked at The New Yorker in his early days, and drew influence from Ad Reinhardt. The fidelity of his approach to poetry on his terms, and the interconnected network this poem provides, compelled the editors of this book to make it a visual motif.
Tom Beckett, ed.
The Difficulties, vol. 3, no. 2.
1989.
Displayed is work by Susan Howe.
Cover photograph of the poet by Janet Chalmer. This is the “Susan Howe Issue,” showcasing her experimental typographic style. Contributors include Susan Howe, Bruce Andrews, Dennis Barone, Charles Bernstein, Bruce Campbell, Janet Ruth Falcon, Joel Lewis, Stephen-Paul Martin, Paul Metcalf, Maureen Owen, Peter Quartermain, Stephen Ratcliffe, Linda Reinfield, and Janet Rodney.
Tom Raworth and Barry Hall, eds.
“before your very eyes!”
Goliard Press, 1967.
Displayed is work by Aram Saroyan.
Saroyan’s work is often described as minimalist, engaging at the alphabetical level and using simple colors to dramatic effect. This is considered one of his most influential poems, and perhaps the shortest poem ever published, according to some interpretations.