Visual Poetry

Now in slightly old news I’d like to announce that my ‘random poems’ have been featured in an online magazine, Tip of the Knife, in their most recent issue. The magazine celebrates visual poetry in all its forms, and it was an honour to be asked to contribute.

What is visual poetry? It is a poetry and art hybrid in which words or letterforms are used to create an image. Both words and image combine to create meaning, that may or may not make sense in the common parlance of poetry. It is related to concrete poetry, and was heavily influenced by Fluxus. It is also known as ‘vispo’ – a horrible abbreviation, ironically unpoetic, that you will never read here again.

My own influence came from the Dadaists, although I had to do a project on concrete poetry when I was in my first year of art college. I recall creating an image using strips of words cut from magazines, but that piece has long gone to the recycling plant and been turned into cardboard boxes or something.

Check out Issue 12 of Tip of the Knife here. You can also view a gallery of my random poems. I’ve been working for the past few months on a new series that is quite different stylistically, so keep your eyes peeled for that!