Kent, I just love that image.

And the lopsided wingbeat.

O for a Muse of wonky flying glowing
Monkey that can climb...


david b

----- Original Message -----
From: kent johnson <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2001 3:17 PM
Subject: Re: visual poetry


> Peter,
>
> When artists started putting things like ticket stubs and newspaper
> clippings into their creations it wasn't "art" for lots of people. The
> question you raise goes back a long time, and long before newspaper
> clippings.
>
> Isn't the history of "poetry" (and artistic practice in general)something
> like a two-winged beast? One wing --the one that flaps the hardest-- would
> be the record of stylistic, "incremental" innovations within given generic
> and institutional frames, its second, weaker wing the record of
conceptual,
> "synthetic" moves that dismantle and leave behind those frames?
>
> So the glowing monkey flies round and upward through history, in wobbly
> circles. But he can't fly without both wings.
>
> Kent
>
> >From: Peter Riley <[log in to unmask]>
> >Reply-To: Peter Riley <[log in to unmask]>
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >Subject: visual poetry
> >Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 14:08:13 GMT
> >
> >Going back to Ian's original questions (No.3) A lot of contempo passes
> >through this office and I've seen "visual poetry" which has no words, nor
> >even letters, nor hardly anything  at all (a straight line for instance,
a
> >comma, a blank page, or the absence of a page).
> >
> >I'm interested in how the word "poem" survives in this kind of work. I
> >guess it survives by being passed on through someone's career, like
someone
> >starts writing quaint short-winded poems and a few years later is copying
> >car registrations as poems,  and later still is making concrete
> >pillar-boxes or photographs of dead mice. And the word "poem" gets passed
> >on through this series until a photograph of a dead mouse is a "poem".
If
> >such a career had started with photographs of dead mice the word "poem"
> >would presumably never have arisen.
> >
> >I can think of two reasons for this misnomering. 1) It is because the
word
> >"poet" has become indissolubly attached to the person so whatever he/she
> >does is a "poem"  whether it's a statement about oppression in the
southern
> >world or a wooden cube painted yellow.  2) If a visual object is  a
"poem"
> >it is presumably thus protected from criticism in purely visual terms --
> >the accusation that a certain black curlicue on a page is a boring and
> >useless pieces of graphic design would be ruled offstage, because it
isn't
> >graphic design it's a "poem", even though in every way that anyone can
see,
> >it is manifestly a piece of graphic design.
> >
> >There is of course a popular and romantic use of the word "poetry"
whereby
> >such a thing as a telling return in a tennis match is described as "pure
> >poetry" which strikes me as quite the opposite of the force of "poem" in
> >the above.  "Poem" = (a) Anything goes.  (b) Precise faultless action.
I
> >wish I knew the etymology of that expression, to define exactly what qua
> >"poetry" someone originally had in mind when whatever it was it set a
> >standard for  almost  any brilliantly performed human act.  Any
> >philologists around not too busy cataloguing bodily organs have any ideas
> >on this?
> >
> >
> >/PR
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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