For Reading Out Loud in Context

Abstract

Visible Language asked Szymon Bojko and Krzysztof Lenk to respond to Martha Lange’s typographic translation of For Reading Out Loud. Lange and her students concentrated on the formal characteristics of the poems with regard to verbal and visual translation. While the mythic dimensions of Mayakovsky and Lissitzky do not encourage a critical look at their work, Bojko and Lenk share two requisite characteristics that make them credible respondents: they are design educators and Eastern Europeans with more immediate knowledge of the history and character of events to which For Reading Out Loud refers. Bojko and Lenk put the poems into a needed social and historical context by performing a content analysis and discussing the revolutionary nature of the poetic and typographic communication and the circumstances surrounding publication.