Words-in-Freedom and the Oral Tradition

Abstract

Despite the fact that his early poetry was grounded in the oral rhetoric of nineteenth-century declamation, F.T. Marinetti invented a new form of visual poetry he called "words-in-freedom." This article explores ways in which oral and print characteristics meshed or clashed in the new form. The new style can be seen at least partially as visual notations for oral performance and as an attempt to unite the interior, isolated spaces of print with the exterior, social event of oral performance. This attempt failed because of coding difficulties occasioned by Marinetti’s ideology of presence. A reading of Marinetti’s poster-poem "Après la Marne, Joffre visita le front en auto" confirms this view.