ON VISUAL POETRY

Visual Poetry is the oldest form of human notation--
a paradox is that by enduring so long through time,
works on rock, in the environment, have "lost" their "original" "message"
--thus creating a notation at once "asemic" & uncanny--that is, it is apprehended immediately as "communication"
without the "necessity" of a "message"--
as well as through time, taking the Egyptian hieroglyphs alone, providing centuries of the creation of al manner of "translations" which in themselves created a myriad "potential" languages in embryo as it were--fictiaonl as with Psalmazar (sp, sorry)--
the sense of codes in visual poetry its use through thousands of years to carry "hidden in plain site/sight/cite" "purloined letters"--
for myself visual-visceral-sonic-haptic "poetry" emerges from that which is--
"look under your feet!"says the Taoist Chuang-Tzu
i work with the Found--everywhere to be Found--
hidden in plain site/sight/cite--
with Picasso i concur: "I do not seek, I find"--
that is without imposing ahead of time the grids, definitions, names--
one disciplines oneself through work though time to be open with al that EMERGES-
that which calls, signs, touches one--energy--
the act & experience of BEing as in my "rubBEings"--which emerge--from telephone poles from lettering of raised or incised form which is made literally direct "contact with" in that on side of the paper the materials is touching my hand, crayon, paint clay etc as they touch from the other side--
and do emerges from this merging --what Burroughs & Gysin , after T. S. Eliot--called "The Third Mind"--
Paul Celan wrote: "Poetry no longer imposes itself., it exposes itself"--the works i make with the materials working two-gether--
create a hieroglyph/(chiroglyph?!)--of siote/sight/cite--of memory dream concrete fact imagination--visceral--in the moment while also in my works finding and transcribing as it were the actions through time, the effects, through time and its disruptions eruptions disasters bombing burnings demolitions the erosions of water dust the chemical interactions/reactions which rust and effect in a myriad way the shapes colors "soundings" of the materials--
language also effected by detournement by the changes n meanings from time from moving to new places a word may mean simultaneously in different locations even adjacent as well as far from each other--very different meanings al these lives and deaths regenerations negentropies, entropic language in any of its forms--visceral visual sonic haptic emotional spiritual mental--al of these that emerge may be Found and find their ways int othe works--
"visual poetry since the term is being used here--is barely scratching its own surfaces of possibilities--environmental works as in Smithson in the writings of Poe which Smithson takes inspiration from works outdoors such as i and many others make interacting with the environment living in it protesting what is hapening with it--Clemente Padin esp in recent years a great many such works--
creating works anonymous markings i dirt which the weather swiftly vanishes, transforms into new "languages" continually--
as Basho wrote:
"the basis of art is change in the universe"--
too often one finds onesefl thinking how distant visual poetry so called is from the actual experience of seeing looking finding--in the environment materials everywhere and as though visual poetry disconnected from vision the visionary aspects of the visual--is abandoning life itself in a sense and removed becomes "academic exercises" in formalism--endless reiterations of the same templates of what "looks like " "visual poetry"
many of these thoughts through time finds oneself not alone as letters arrive from many countries sensing the same disconnects--perhaps an isolationism--which exits historically--re the us--which goes with the sense of being "number one" etc
also very much is a time of Great Fear continually propounded by the media, the government, by the degrees of censorship which become interiorized and turn tino unconscious or not self censorship--creating tendencies to conformity, "safety in numbers" etc--from the point of view of others writing aboard in major journals--"the New McCarthyism" in the usa--
but those are questions beyond what is visual poetry the first question so i apologize for going too far--
but things that have come to attention and via others--so one feels are part of "visual poetry"--
re the asemic poetries, again, so many myriad possibilities which are opening and barely glimpsed as yet--which is GREAT!! as with visual poetry so called one has found but the smallest "in-site/sight/cite-meants into, with, for--
and so the infinite opens--
re the asemic for example--one may ask--is this a "private " language--and from there might one think of various forms of "private" language in connection with "privatization" and in turn that it may become a form of branded/rebranding---
a logo as it were for private enterprise to play on words-
a private enterprise of one's own with an established asemic logo--which has been done to be sure
or say that in times when political fallout into the cultural necessitates a self censorship in face of a perceived censorship--might not the asemic be a way to communicate without "communication" i the usua sense of the term, so that one is "safe" which expressing something perhaps "unsafe"
or--this could be done in the rverse, that is to say--asemic writing as a way to elude "saying anything" etc etc
or asemic simply as a decorative aspect without the "need" to "communicate"
one could go on and on with the possibilities, thoughts provoked, al the studying to do into who and when has created such works alone is a tremendous ex/incitement! to continue finding--!!
in this which is delineated yet without limits by the term "visual poetry"
(am rushed so able to only indicate but a very smal glimpse of what is in itself but a small glimpse of what may be thought seen lived sing shout whisper ,murmur be silent experienced heard danced with--to BE with and in--for--and to share with others these findings--
hopefully of interest &use--
onwo/ards ever!

David Baptiste Chirot, USA