And the visual and material qualities of writing were from the outset part
of the conception of 'performance writing' as it has been developed, taught
and researched at Dartington, as implied by cris. This is (deliberately) not
the same as identifying a specific genre of poetry as 'visual poetry',
though. And isn't there a line of visual writing that aims at a meditational
quiet (I was about to say 'silence') and another that celebrates its
association with performances that are at least sonic (and possibly very
loud) if not also gestural? An issue for the academies may be that the
reading methods that came to define 'English Literature' were not well
equipped for dealing with anything other than texts for which the white page
is an ideal or metaphysical space.
John
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