Surrealism and abstractness are, to me, the keys to understanding the connection between poetry and visual art. Belgian painter René Magritte revolutionized visual art by placing text onto a painting. The usage of text in itself was enough of a departure from convention to solidify its significance, but Magritte went beyond that. The piece, titled The Treachery of Images, is most commonly referred to by its text: “Ceci n'est pas une pipe,” or, “This is not a pipe.”
Therein lies the poetry of the thing. Words call attention to the treachery of images by creating contrast where typically there would be none. The text entirely transforms the visual and intellectual meaning of the piece. Without the inclusion of text, the urge to interpret the visual stimulus would occur differently.
Upon viewing a painting of a pipe, sans language, viewers may wonder, “Why a pipe? What does it mean?” or conclude, “It’s just a pipe. It means nothing.” Each of these interpretations are probable, but they engage with the visual matter as if it is what it portrays; as if a recreation of a pipe is really a pipe.
In this piece, Magritte simultaneously challenged typical methods of both consuming and creating visual art. And, more importantly, he made use of the written word to literalize the act of creation and deconstruct the suspension of disbelief that often feels implicit in the perception and interpretation of art.
Yoko Ono’s conceptualist poems are impressive to me for their interactivity and matter-of-factness. Her 1963 piece Touch Poem for A Group of People is all of two words: “Touch eachother,” the words “each” and “other” themselves touching, as if setting an example. Beat Piece is similarly brief and instructive: “Listen to a heart beat.”
Ono’s art has always been intertwined with action. A Hole to See The Sky Through is tangible: a 3.7 x 5.7in postcard containing a singular statement of intended use.
Just as Magritte’s Treachery of Images tells the watcher what they are and are not looking at, Ono guides the eye of the beholder where she wants it, moves the body into focused action.
It is in this way that language finds utility in art, guiding interpretation. One could argue that if any aspect of A Hole to See The Sky Through is a poem, it isn’t the words, but the circle of sky seen through the hole.
When language was first introduced to visual mediums by Magritte and some of his contemporaries, it had a tendency to disrupt balance. But today, after conceptualists and surrealists and abstract artists and pop artists have had their way with art, its definition is broader than ever. Art pieces can be composed entirely of words.
So, with that, I’ll return to a question I posed in last week’s newsletter. What, really, is the difference between a work of text-based art and a poem?
Wind Music intrigues me. It is partially instructive, like the Yoko Ono pieces I shared, yet it contains noticeable poetic technique and a fascinating connection to music. Mieko Shiomi is a composer and artist whose written pieces allude to musicality. In a sense, she controls thought through her words the way a conductor guides an orchestra, so that there is no way to read Wind Music without collaborating with it.
The instructions provided in the piece are far less doable than looking through a hole at the sky. People can’t necessarily “raise wind” or “let something be blown by wind” on their own accord. Confronting impossibility in such a way strikes me as uniquely poetic, potentially an instance of negative capability.
Wind at the beach
Wind in the street
Wind passing by the car
Typhoon
The refrain of “wind” occurs poetically throughout, especially in the final stanza, or section. Here, it comes to a point. Three lines of loose association finalized with the inelegant word “typhoon.” Just like that, disaster. The loudest point of the piece’s widening crescendo.
Is it a poem? As far as I know, Shiomi has never identified herself as a poet, yet she is thoroughly a musician and the poetic elements of this piece are really just extensions of her musical endeavors. So then are all poems music? Even when they’re visual, readable, act-out-able? And what, then, is art? The imitation of life? The pursuit of beauty? A combination of both, conveyed through distinct perspectives?
Ken Lum’s “Portrait Repeated” Text Series is poetic in the way the human experience is poetic. Emotions themselves often fall short of sense. We are unable to do anything but repeat ourselves, the unrelenting thoughts vocalized again and again.
In this series, text gives voice to the subjects of the portraits. Where Magritte’s assertion that what appears to be a pipe “is not a pipe” conflicts with the visual aspect of the work, Lum’s use of text heightens what the visual already portrays.
These pieces seem to me like a bisected poems. The poetic image is made visual and shoved to one side while the repetitive voice of the poem takes the other side for itself. I believe that my interpretation is even supported by the series’ title: “Portrait Repeated.” Both sides are the same portrait in different mediums, to be digested in different ways.
It is also intriguing to confront the use of portrait photography here, as it is not the medium of any other pieces I’ve discussed so far. A photograph confronts the same representation-versus-reality dilemma that Magritte references in The Treachery of Images.
The photo of two happy people relaxing in the grass in Come Join Us depicts people that exist, grass that can be laid on, happiness that can be felt. But were they directed on how to pose, or shot candidly? Was the theme of the photograph and its accompanying text decided beforehand? Are the models friends of the artist? Friends with each other? Strangers? This image is “treacherous” in elusive ways. In any case, though, I think it is a poem.
So what about images and visual art pieces that are written with the intent to be considered poems? To explore this, I’ll be discussing a style that appeared just barely before my time: alternative literature. Emerging around 2011, alt-lit was a literary movement for the digital age. Works of alt-lit were shared on Tumblr, Facebook, and even through Gmail, incorporating text, digital drawings, diagrams, gifs, photos, videos, and more.
Alt-lit brought with it the “internet poetry” style. Although its uploads were few and far between for a couple of years before finally going dormant around 2018, the original Internet Poetry blog is still up, ripe with memes, collages, text screenshots, Google searches, Facebook statuses, and poems superimposed over images.
Internet Poetry was founded in 2011. IP publishes poetry as screenshots, image macros, and other internet-based forms.
Some image/macro poets, like my personal favorite, Jonny Bolduc (jovialtorchlight) are still active on Tumblr. Bolduc’s piece Caution reminds me of the Ken Lum works from before, except that it uses a stock clip-art image instead of a portrait photograph.
This taking advantage of what’s freely available on the internet is quite typical of macro poetry. In fact, it is really an accessible offshoot of conceptual art for those who don’t have the resources or desire to approach the form using traditional materials.
As the internet becomes increasingly embedded in daily life, it thus becomes embedded in poems. Macro poetry is a wonderful marriage of visual art and poetry, challenging almost every convention of either one with its blatant social media influence, pop culture references, use of digital images, and conversational, minimalist style.
Over the last ten years, as the original writers of internet poetry have phased out of view, more memes have begun to border on poetic. Whether intentionally or not, Instagram accounts like @afffirmations and @manicpixiememequeen carry on the internet poetry tradition. Boundlessly sardonic, surreal, neurotic, and distinctly current, memes like these represent a typical mode of modern artistic expression.
How exciting to be able to look back and make connections between seemingly disparate mediums, to connect 1960s conceptual art to early 2010s macro poetry and gen-Z/Millennial meme pages. How beautiful that it all fits together.
Like I said before, this topic was incredibly fun to research, and I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it in the future. Who knows, maybe I’ll do a full rundown of memes that strike me as especially poetic.
What I love perhaps the most about all of this is that I’ve found no real answers to the questions I posed early on. A James Ganas macro from 2012 is as much a work of art as an Ed Ruscha piece from 1976. Both are poems to me, but to you, maybe neither is.
Maybe there’s no point in these distinctions at all anymore, and all that matters is that we’re engaging with the creative spirits of ourselves and each other, touching each other, as Yoko Ono’s poem instructs.
Thank you kindly for reading this. For being part of the spirit-touching.
Until next time.
<3 Bee