CyberSpace is not simply htmlizing, is what we here at About Poetry believe, nor is it simply a community-enforcement squad’s redefinition of friends and lovers fleshless. We see a poem on a screen as a poem, a connector of linguistic holistic hooliganisms, a shameless shaman sham’n’truth shake.
Concrete poetry, “shaped” poems, visual poetry (or, as we like to call it, “VisPo”... they are all forms of poetry in which the visual element is part of the poem’s art, the typographical arrangement of letters and words on the page (or as here, on the screen) is as much a part of the poem’s essence as the more traditional poetic techniques like prosody, meter, image, etc. Concrete poetry/VisPo is an important tributary in the modern-day River Po, and we’ve gathered a few glassfuls for your delectation.
- “SnakeShapePoema,” by Rinaldo Rasa
- “Subject: skyscraper-no” & “Don’t Get Me Started,” by Alan Sondheim
- “A Scrolly,” anonymous self-propelled moving image poem
- “comet,” by Tree Riesener
- “Rain Song,” by Ruth Nott
- “The Bird” and “The Quill,” by Ernesto Santiago
