Concrete Poetry: A World View

by Mary Ellen Solt (Editor / Contributor), Alain Arias-Misson (Contributor), Ronaldo Azeredo (Contributor)

This is an ex-library item with the wear and tear of a book of its age. No tears or writing, but contains stamps and the catalog envelope in the back.

Genres: Poetry, Art

311 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Mary Ellen Solt, née Bottom was an American concrete poet, essayist, translator, editor, and professor. Her work was most notably poems in the shape of flowers such as "Forsythia," "Lilac," and "Geranium." They were collected in Flowers in Concrete (1966).

Reviews

[Glenn Russell]

Concrete poetry is all about the look of the poem, the shape of the poem, the visual pattern created by words. With this in mind, I'd like to pose the following question: How would I transform my simple line poem below into a concrete poem? By the way, I was inspired to write this poem after reading the anti-poetry of the great Nicanor Parra from Chile.

EXILE IN MY OWN COUNTRY

I don’t watch television
I don’t own a car
I don’t go to the movies
I don’t listen to pop music
I don’t follow a sports team
I don’t eat crap food or guzzle down pop soda
I don’t belong to a community group or read the newspaper
I don’t drink or smoke
In many ways, having lived in the US all my life,
I’m an exile in my own country.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eugen Gomringer...



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Augusto de Campos



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Haroldo de Campos



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Décio Pignatari



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Pedro Xisto



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Ronaldo Azeredo



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Claus Bremer



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Franz Mon



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Ferdinand Kriwet



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Ladislav Novák



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Jiří Kolář



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Jiří Valoch



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Vaclav Havel



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Eduard Ovčáček



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Pierre & Ilse Garnier



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Jean Francois Bory



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Paul de Vree



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Ivo Vroom



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Carlo Belloli



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Arrigo Lora Totino



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Adriano Spatola



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Salette Tavares



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Julio Campal



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Herminio Molero



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Ian Hamilton Finlay



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Edwin Morgan



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John Furnival



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bpNichol



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Emmett Williams



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Aram Saroyan



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Jonathan Williams



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Mary Ellen Solt



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A list of the poets represented in this anthology whose work I cannot find online...

Hansjörg Mayer
Leon van Essche
E. M. de Melo e Castro
Mathias Goeritz
Fernando Millan
Ignazio Gomez de Liano
Enrique Uribe
Ocarte
Jose A. Caceres
Joaquin Diez de Fortuny
Jesus Garcia Sanchez
Alain Arias-Misson
Fernando Lopez Vera
Dom Sylvester Houedard
Peter Greenham
Robert Lax
Carl Fernbach-Flarsheim
Ronald Johnson
...

[Tentatively, Convenience · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yet another bk of Concrete Poetry. How many are there? Not many. This one has some color illustrations & more explanatory texts & manifestos than in the 2 other main ones I have. In my copy, pages 17 to 32 are upside-down & backwards. That seems like a binding error. I wonder if they're all like that? After some prefatory remarks concerning the widespread & somewhat ambiguous use of the term "Concrete Poetry", Solt, the editor, states that "there is a fundamental requirement which the various kinds of concrete poetry meet: concentration upon the physical material from which the poem or text is made."

That, in itself, seems to fail as a definition for me. The cover's poem has the word "FORSYTHIA" at its base w/ other words growing out of it that begin w/ the same letter that these words originate from. From these words come the beginning letter placed as if they're buds or flowers on a limb of the forsythia plant. It's not a very complicated poem, it's a simple picture poem. I like it just fine but is it really an example of "concentration upon the physical material from which the poem or text is made"? It seems to me that the poem is made from the physical materials of paper, ink, & paint. Maybe the pigment is made from a forsythia plant. I reckon it's possible that the pigment & the paper cd both have plant origins. My point is that Solt seems to be conflating what the words refer to w/ what they are physically.

That aside, I don't really care to nitpick here. It was just something to write. The bk's full of interesting pictures that create calculated relationships between words & images & that's something I totally enjoy. There's even the following Ronald Johnson piece that I'd forgotten about:

eyeleveleye

I made a window shade once that had that cut out of it. As the window shade went up or down, the eye level went up & down w/ it.

[Hannah Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://archive.org/details/concretep...

[Slow Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is stupidly good. PDFs widely available online. practically every page is breathtaking

[Vick · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of the most rewarding experiences for anyone who is willing to study it from front to back. incredible in all senses

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the best book on concrete/visual poetry I have seen, although the anthology edited by Emmett Williams is also great. Mary Ellen Solt's essay for this volume is brilliant and the poems are well selected and diverse (21 countries are represented). You can see some of Solt's concrete flower poems on UbuWeb: http://www.ubu.com/historical/solt/so...