Typography and the Visual Concrete Poem

Abstract

The visual concrete poet is concerned with the relationship of typography to meaning. Constructive poetry uses the lower-case, sans-serif letter almost exclusively. Increasingly poets are finding this practice too restrictive and are following the example of Mallarmé, who used typography expressively. The early manifestoes of concrete poetry emphasized Mallarmé’s influence in the direction of spatial syntax and ideogrammic construction. It needs to be recognized that visual concrete poetry relates to all the stages of ideogrammic development and that the kind of ideogram the poet is presenting will influence his typographical choices. If concrete poetry is to remain a viable new genre, its visual potential must be liberated rather than restricted.