Desparate once again for something to blog about, I’m reporting today on an e.mail I got a little while ago from Jorge
Dear Bob Grumman
I hope you are fine.
While reading Writing To Be Seen, I came across your concept of visio-textual art and found it interesting in order to include in my postdoctoral research report. In Permutoria: Visio-Textual Art, the same term and concept appeared. I have bought these books when I was in the II Avant Writing Symposium held in Columbus, Ohio, where I met Crag Hill, Nico Vassilakis, John M. Bennett, Miekal And, and many others. It was a great meeting. It was a pity you couldn´t come, for it was an opportunity to meet and talk with you.
I would like you to send a copy of the text of yours where you explain your concept of visual-text art. The explanation in Writing to be seen is not complete.
Best regards from Brazil
I answered quickly. (I’m pretty good about quick answers to questions about visual poetry.)
“Nice hearing from you again, Jorge!” said I. (We’d talked a bit about visual poetry over the Internet before.) “Yes, I wish I could have been at the symposium in Columbus—I would have enjoyed meeting you. And seeing Nico in person for the first time, although he’s an old friend. I’ll try to find where I’ve discussed “visio-textual art and e.mail it to you. It may take a while because I am not well-organized and I have discussed it and related terms in various places.
“Actually, though, my own definition of it is simple: it is any work of art that contains both textual matter and matter that is wholly visual. By ‘wholly visual,’ I mean not visual merely in the way a conventional poem is since we must see it to read it, but in the way an image of a rose is. It’s not an important term for me, except to emphasize my belief that ‘visual poetry’ is not a good name for anything with both textual matter, which can be non-verbal, and visual matter because it is too inclusive to be effective, and goes against the tradition of poetry for thousands of years as something containing words.
“Feel free to ask for clarification or whatever else you may need.”
Yes, this is my standard boilerplate, but I harp on it because no one else seems to take it seriously. Visual poets don’t like narrowing terms; the academy would agree with me if they paid any attention at all to visual poetry.
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