Visual Poetry exhibit, July 2012

At short notice, I prepared a small exhibition of visual poetry at the General Store, mainly to celebrate the forthcoming publication of The Last Vispo anthology (later this year, from Fantagraphics). The exhibition lasted for the month of July.

Here are some lo-res photos I took with my friend's phone:

book & card by Rob Grant (Australia), postcard by Sheila E. Murphy (USA), 2 objects by Carol Stetser (USA)

pages from The Last Vispo: visual poems by Anatol Knotek, Jo Cook, Geof Huth, Joseph Keppler

pages from The Last Vispo: visual poems by Donato Mancini, Marilyn Rosenberg, Peter Cicciarello, mIEKAL aND

pages from The Last Vispo: visual poems by Gary Barwin, Gareth Jenkins, Suzan Sarı, Reed Altemus

3 pages by Serse Luigetti (Italy)

cards by Shmuel (USA) & Tim Gaze (Australia)

some books & magazines from my collection:

poemdrawings, by Andrew Suknaski (bootleg edition, Australia)

Dada Korkut, by Serkan Isin (Ebabil, Turkey)

Sample EXample, by Jim Leftwich (Luna Bisonte Prods, USA)

skull pulse, by Andrew Topel (Eight Page Press, Finland)

Ignore This Sign!, by Eileen Hennessy (self-published, Australia)

noology, by Tim Gaze (Arrum Press, Finland)

Unusual Work #2 (edited by Π.Ο., Australia)

poemic strip anthology (edited by Piotr Szreniawski, Poland)

collapoems, by Cornelis Vleeskens (Earthdance, Australia)

un nome, by Michael Basinksi (Runaway Spoon Press, USA)

Silence, by Derek Beaulieu (Redfoxpress, Ireland)

Poesía Visual, numeros 28 & 30 (edited by Samuel Montalvetti, Argentina)

zaumpoems, by pete spence (Earthdance, Australia)

Stalking the Minotaur, by Bill Keith (Koja Press, USA)

Simultaneous Parallel Circuits, by Shigeru Matsui (Aloalo, Japan)

brushpoems, by Cornelis Vleeskens (Earthdance, Australia)

Query, Quest & Quasi, by Marilyn R. Rosenberg (self-published, USA)

δ (delta) numero 27 (edited by Tanabe Shin, Japan)

Lost & Found Times # 49 (edited by John M Bennett, USA)

Cutupia, by Reed Altemus (TonerWorks, USA)

From the Annual Records of the Cloud Appreciation Society, by Márton Koppány & Nico Vassilakis (Otoliths, Australia)

Wordless (poems), by Rosaire Appel (press rappel, USA)

collages from our May 2012 poetry forum

The theme for May was collage.

 collage by Janet

collage by Kim

collage by Neil

poem by Neil, who was force-fed Maslow's hierarchy of needs during a training course

3 collages by Tim

2 more from the September poetry forum

taking it in turn sampling bits of Arthur Koestler's The Roots of Coincidence:

Mental influence on random events
are manifestations of a universal principle
what causality is up to, we think we know
yet the theory of an ocean of particles
through which the basic polarity manifests
the mystical concept of One-ness
even when very large numbers are involved
are, of course, manifested in different ways
on the shadow desk in front of me
the Lamarckian view is philosophically more attractive
in which dogs and cats seem to be aware
neo Darwinian déjà vu, almost inviolable
visual or auditory hallucinations
the theory of an ocean of particles of negative mass
serving as a subterranean pool which individual minds can tap
before he has actually moved his finger
a casual phenomenon


some prefixes to try out on the list of words below:
pro-
anti-
pre-
post-
sub-
super-

Life
dog
woofer
legal
leftist
baby
war
sleep
shopper
dinner
natal
shower
oxidant
insanity

wordsmiths: Marisa, Lyn, Neil, Tim

Found Word Poems

Setting the scene: Poetry Forum gathering, members chatting, writing, sharing, collaborating...I decide to listen and record whatever snippets catch my attention....words, phrases, exclamations, ruminations....one hour and 4 pages later I have my raw data, my Found Words to shape, collate, mould and create, literally from out of thin air! From breath to speech to page to poetry....Found! Here are some of the resulting poems:

Perfect Date

*****

If I wasn't so repressed

stoned and pissed

highbrow literate

anally retentive

sort of "done it all" player

and if you didn't know.....

it could just finish up all right!

Haiku

****

cracked, my good fortune!

scorched bones purple black and bleached

just an empty shell

*

textured living thing

animated bits of skin

beautiful people

*

muso gypsies drunk

on cups of tea and solace

all their hair-ness cool

Not Haiku

*****

unused to massive appreciation

tattooist

completely dyed

left buttock

peroxide blonde.

And why not!

September poetry forum

here's the best of the collaborative things we wrote earlier this afternoon:

September collaborative poem

what colour are your eyes?

colour that cools the mind and heats the blood

past boiling into steaming desire

for a love like that just add aromatherapy oil

sublimation into gas, invisible odour

pheromones like incense smoke ascending

touching the heights of heaven

I steady myself, giddy with delight

ready to swoop into the salty depths

fear of drowning surfaces and stalls

spinning toplike in the vortex

ever increasing in speed and intensity

in a dance of colour and sound

beauty and balance

joy and delight

participants were Neil, Lyn, Marisa, Tim

... eventually, we'll post more of our writing from the August & September sessions.

Some SALA exhibition participants

Thomas Rosser

Pam Chapman

Delphine Massey

Yvonne Jaunay

Heather van Kaathaven

& another collage made at our Poetry Forum

this is by Marisa.