Strange, but my latest definition of visual poetry is much simpler than my previous ones, and I really think it does the trick.  Here it is:

Visual Poetry: poetry containing visual elements whose interaction with its words results, in the view of the majority of reasonably knowledgeable, objective observers, in something of central significance to the poem’s full aesthetic meaning.  I may tinker a bit with the wording, but don’t think I need to make any consequential changes.  It’s for my taxonomy of poetry, by the way.  Those who want their asemic visual works to be called “visual poetry” won’t like it, but I think it will be accepted eventually by the more rational participants in poetry, who will find it foolish to ignore the fact that “poetry” has referred to collections of  words for well over two thousand years in every known culture–although some  of them will deny anything not wholly verbal should be termed “poetry.”  Which, of course, leaves the problem of what to call it.

My definition also requires a a visual poem’s verbal and visual elements to fuse in some way, thus disqualifying collages containing both graphics and words separate from one another as visual poetry.   So the definition does not have to state explicitly, I hope, that one experiencing visual poetry will experience it as simultaneously both verbal and visual, which I’ve always considered a necessary characteristic of visual poetry–because it distinguishes it from illustrated poems and pictures with poetic captions.

The mention of “reasonably knowledgeable, objective observers” should remind everyone of the ultimate subjectivity that will come into play in classifying visual poetry, beginning with the problem of who should count as such an observer.  I don’t think it matters: if the definition proves acceptable, it will come to be the one used in criticism, colleges, visual poets.  If not, it won’t.  And I contend that most specimens of visual poetry will be clear-cut.  Only in a few cases will people have to debate whether in a given specimen visual and verbal elements interact enough, and/or produce a significant central effect.