Dick Higgins: Pattern Poetry: Guide to an Unknown Literature (1987)

“Pattern poetry–poetry from before 1900 that fuses literature and visual art–has existed since the times of ancient Crete and Egypt. Less well known than modern visual poetry, pattern poetry has been produced in most European and American literatures, and, as close analogues, in many oriental literatures.

This book tells the history of pattern poetry, documenting and classifying more than 2,000 works. Illustrations of each major genre of pattern poem are included. The book also explores related forms, such as graphic music notations, shaped prose, sound poetry, and poetic labyrinths, to name a few. A glossary, essays by two world authorities on the oriental analogues to the pattern poem, and the first full bibliography on pattern poetry complete the work. With this book, Dick Higgins has provided an indispensable tool for opening up the area of pattern poetry to the scholar and the lay reader alike, bringing order to what has been an obscure and confusing area, and delighting the eye and mind by casting light on these forgotten treasures.”

Publisher SUNY Press, 1987
ISBN 0887064140, 9780887064142
x+275 pages

Review: Piotr Wilczek (Pamiętnik Literacki, 1989, PL).

Publisher

EPUB (updated on 2023-9-25)

Eugen Gomringer (ed.): konkrete poesie: deutschsprachige autoren (1972) [German]

Autoren: Friedrich Achleitner, Max Bense, Claus Bremer, Reinhard Döhl, Heinz Gappmayr, Eugen Gomringer, Helmut Heißenbüttel, Ernst Jandl, Kurt Marti, Hansjörg Mayer, Franz Mon, Diter Rot, Gerhard Rühm, Konrad-Balder Schäuffelen, André Thomkins, Timm Ulrichs und Wolf Wezel.

Publisher Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart, 1972
Universal-Bibliothek, Nr. 9350/2
ISBN 3150093503, 9783150093504
174 pages

PDF

David Antin: i never knew what time it was (2005)

“In this series of intricately related texts, internationally known poet, critic, and performance artist David Antin explores the experience of time—how it’s felt, remembered, and recounted. These free-form talk pieces—sometimes called talk poems or simply talks—began as improvisations at museums, universities, and poetry centers where Antin was invited to come and think out loud. Serious and playful, they move rapidly from keen analysis to powerful storytelling to passages of pure comedy, as they range kaleidoscopically across Antin’s experiences: in the New York City of his childhood and youth, the Eastern Europe of family and friends, and the New York and Southern California of his art and literary career. The author’s analysis and abrasive comedy have been described as a mix of Lenny Bruce and Ludwig Wittgenstein, his commitment to verbal invention and narrative as a fusion of Mark Twain and Gertrude Stein. Taken together, these pieces provide a rich oral history of and critical context for the evolution of the California art scene from the 1960s onward.”

Publisher University of California Press, 2005
ISBN 0520243048, 9780520243040
175 pages

Review: Ernest Larsen (Boston Review).

Publisher

PDF (updated on 2017-6-27)

Antin on UbuWeb (includes PDF edition of Autobiography and full text of In Place of a Lecture: Three Musics for Two Voices from Talking)