Prefeitura do Municpio de So Paulo Prefeito / Jnio da Silva Quadros Secretaria Municipal de Cultura Secretrio / Renato Ferrari Centro Cultural

So Paulo Diretor / Roberto Vicente Frizzo

730 Centro Cultural So Paulo C397p I Mostra Internacional de Poesia Visual de So Paulo = I International Exhibition of Visual Poetry of So Paulo / projeto e organizao Philadelpho Menezes So Paulo, 1988 174p.: il.; 16 x 22 cm 1. Artes plsticas 2. Poesia concreta I. Menezes, Philadelpho, 1960- II. Ttulo.

NDICE

alguns poemas da mostra (ordem alfabtica de autor) some poems of the exhibit (alphabetic order of author) .......................................................................... pginas pares Introduo / Introduction Roberto Vicente Frizzo ................................................................................................................................................. 5/6 Uma abordagem tipogrfica da poesia visual ............................................................................................................. Philadelpho Menezes (Brasil) 7

Investigaes a partir dos elemtnos visuais na potica hispano-americana de vanguarda ....................................... 21 Amalio Pinheiro (Brasil) A arte latino-americana de nosso tempo .....................................................................................................................45 Clemente Padn (Uruguai) Nos anos oitenta, arte-postal e poesia visual ............................................................................................................... 57 Csar Espibnosa / Letcia Ocharan (Mxico) Poesia visual a escritura que se visualiza ................................................................................................................. 61 Giuliano Falco (Itlia) Poesia visual na Iugoslvia .......................................................................................................................................... 65 Miroljub Todorovic (Iugoslvia) didiEYEtica: uma ps-leitura da poesia visual ............................................................................................................ 69 Mrcio Almeida (Brasil) Poesia: ou a interpenetrao dos signos .................................................................................................................... 73 Fernando Aguiar (Portugal) A palavra da imagem (ou a poesia metagramtica) ................................................................................................... 77 Sergio Costa (Itlia)

In English language: A typologic al approach towards visual poetry ...................................................................................................... Philadelpho Menezes (Brazil) Some instigating issues on visual elements in the avant-garde Spanish American poetics .................................. (Amlio Pinheiro (Brazil) 81 97

Contemporary Latin-American art ............................................................................................................................. 121 (te Padin (Uruguay) In the eighties, postal-art and visual poetry .............................................................................................................. 135 Clemente Padin / Letcia Ocharn (Mexico) Visual Poetry in Yugoslavia ....................................................................................................................................... 145 Miroljub Todorovic (Yugoslavia) DidEYEtics: a post-reading of visual poetry ............................................................................................................ 149 Marcio Almeida (Brazil) Poetry: or interplay of signs ....................................................................................................................................... 153 Fernando Aguiar (Portugal) The verbal side of the image (or Metagrammatic poetry) .......................................................................................... 157 Sergio Cena (Italy) Sobre os autores dos textos ...................................................................................................................................... 161 About the authors of the texts .................................................................................................................................... 163 Lista dos participantes / List of participants .............................................................................................................. 165 Crditos da I MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE POESIA VISUAL DE SO PAULO .................................................... 173

da sabedoria popular que pelo dedo se conhece o gigante e foi exatamente o que aconteceu

conosco ao nos ser apresentado, pela primeira vez, o projeto desta I MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE POESIA VISUAL. Impossvel que algum com um mnimo de sensibilidade no percebesse estar diante do maior evento literrio internacional do ano. Imediatamente liberamos a Equipe da Diviso de Difuso Cultural do Centro Cultural So Paulo para que, coordenada pelo dinmico Philadelpho Menezes, se colocasse a campo e materializasse o projetado. Houve uma resposta impressionante por parte dos vrios segmentos atingidos pelo evento e a abrangncia do mesmo acabou sendo da ordem de 350 poemas representando cerca de 40 pases de todos os continentes O gigante era maior do que o dedo nos fizera supor. Estamos certos da importncia do trabalho que realizamos mas no poderamos deixar de registrar que ele resultado da participao de todos os artistas que responderam a nosso convite e que do MOSTRA o brilho de seus talentos; das representaes diplomticas dos pases envolvidos por toda colaborao dada; da Prefeitura do Municpio de So Paulo, atravs de sua Secretaria Municipal de Cultura, por seu titular Dr. Renato Ferrari e seus Assessores pelo apoio irrestrito e de todos os funcionrios do C.C.S.P. que, em alguma medida, colaboraram para sua realizao. A todos, nossos parabns e agradecimentos.

ROBERTO VICENTE FRIZZO Diretor do C.C.S.P.

The proverb says that one knows the giant by his finger. That is exactly what occurred when the project of the I INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION OF VISUAL POETRY was presented to us. It would be unthinkable that anyone, of the sightest sensitivity, wouldnt realize that was confronted with one of the gratest literary events of the year. Imediately, we freed the Division of Cultural Difusion of the So Paulo Cultural Center in order to materialize the project, under the coordination of the dynamic Philadelpho Menezes. There was an impressive response from the various segments touched by the event, and the width of this project reached the grand total of more than 350 poets, representing 39 countries from all the continents the giant was bigger than we could judge by his finger. We are sure about the importance of this work we are doing and we couldnt omit pointing out the it is the result of. - the participation of the artists who answered our invitation, adding the brightness of their talents to our exhibition, - the collaboration of the diplomatic representatives of the countries involved in this project; - the unrestricted support given by the head of the Municipal Secretary of Culture, Dr. Renato Ferrari, and his assistants; - the collaboration given, in every way, by the CCSP members. To all them, our thanks and congratulations.

Roberto Vicente Frizzo

UMA ABORDAGEM TIPOLGICA DA POESIA VISUAL

Philadelpho Menezes Brasil

Mas isso poesia? difcil organizar um evento e justific-lo num artigo cuja resposta a primeira e mais bvia pergunta pode apenas deixar no ar uma outra questo ainda maior: afinal, o que poesia? Pode-se tentar a via das definies epifnico-lricas e por a se chegar ao campo florido da magia, onde poesia tudo que seja potico (e tudo potico desde que seja poesia). H o caminho da constatao apriorstica que delimita toda poesia a uma arte exclusivamente da palavra e da versificao. E no faz muito tempo, o "verso livre" no era poesia, mas "arte potica". H, por fim, a opo, deixando as definies mais complexas para outro momento, de tentar vasculhar na babel de linguagens e lnguas que constitui a produo da poesia visual uma estrutura arquitetnica subjacente aos trabalhos que revele o por que do termo "poesia" para nome-los. De incio, deve-se entender que o nome "poesia visual", apesar de ter nascido como

designao de um movimento especfico das dcadas de 60/70, refere-se a todo e qualquer aspecto de visualidade no poema na acepo que lhe dada hoje, englobando ate mesmo formas poticas anteriores como a poesia caligrmica, o espacialismo e o concretismo. A grande variedade de aspectos visuais demonstra como a questo da visualidade e o elemento mais marcante numa potica contempornea caracterizada pela interrelao entre as linguagens artsticas, que, de resto, tipifica toda a arte da modernidade. Por outro lado, comum o entrelaamento da "poesia visual" com a chamada "arte 'postal", o que ocasiona, com freqncia, enganos de conceito, j que se confunde "linguagem" com "meio", articulao sgnica com veculo de comunicao. Nem toda "poesia visual" e comunicada por correio, como nem toda arte por correio e poesia visual. E corto, no entanto, que a "arte postal" e suas tcnicas de reprodutibilidade baratas, como a xerox, facilitam o intercmbio dos poetas por fora do mercado editorial, mas ao mesmo tempo acabam

interferindo na linguagem dos poemas, pois causam uma sensvel perda da qualidade grfica dos trabalhos, fator preponderante num poema visual, e destacam a carter desconstrutivista, propositalmente descuidado e quase artesanal que informa boa parte dessa poesia. Na tentativa de entender a grande babel da poesia visual, faz-se necessria uma abordagem classificatria dos seus tipos, de modo a tornar didtica a mostra ao mais leigo observador, ao mesmo tempo que descortine as vinculaes histricas desses estilos com as vertentes estticas antecedentes para apontar suas perspectivas. A classificao que se passa a fazer, ento, no tem a finalidade de catalogar por prazer acadmico, ou de reduzir os poemas aos seus mnimos denominadores comuns, mas sim a objetivo de comparar para entender, sempre tendo em conta que as diferenas pessoais de poeta pra poeta e que fazem a personalidade de cada obra e a prpria fora das tendncias, a medida em que a transgresso dos padres e a regra da criao. A opo pela classificao par tipos de procedimento composicional faz com que a obra de muitos autores se dissemine par vrias partes da exposio, perdendo uma unidade interna e uma pessoalidade do autor que, se exposta em seu conjunto, lado a lado, seriam destacadas. Uma outra finalidade que justifica esse esfacelamento parcial da individualidade do autor a possibilidade que surge de, a partir da viso por tendncias, abrir-se a discusso sabre possveis caminhos e novas propostas estticas para a poesia. A busca de uma tipologia da variada poesia

visual baseia-se no tratamento visual dado a palavra, nos modos de articulao entre signos visuais e verbais, enfim, nas diversas maneiras de incorporao da visualidade poesia. Esse o critrio de anlise que nortear a tipologia que passamos a expor. Num esforo de captao das dominantes comuns aos trabalhos expostos, pode-se dizer que h trs grandes blocos na poesia visual: dos poemas em que a visualidade o prprio aspecto grfico do signo verbal (frase, palavra ou letra); dos poemas em que a visualidade, a par do aspecto grfico de letras e palavras, manifesta-se em signos visuais dissociados formalmente do signo verbal; e dos poemas em que as visualidades dos signos visuais e verbais combinam-se formalmente para a criao de uma semntica intersgnica particular. O visual do verbal Essa primeira vertente a mais variada e tambm a que menos tem vinculao com o movimento inicial da "poesia visual" das dcadas de 60/70, pois as manifestaes de visualidade da palavra so muito anteriores a ele. Os poemas dessa vertente tm no signo verbal a seu elemento central, dominante, e a ele se submetem os aspectos visuais e sonoros. Pode-se dizer que essa vertente tem origem na prpria preocupao de se abreviar a separao entre o signo lingstico, seus significados e referencias. Assim, encontramos entre a produo da atual "poesia visual" aquilo que ficou convencionado chamar-se "caligrama" (por influncia da obra de Guillaume Apollinaire). Na busca de uma aderncia da forma verbal ao tema, a "caligrama" dispe

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as palavras na pgina de modo a representar figurativamente o objeto descrito pelo texto. Forma mais antiga da visualidade (h registro desse procedimento composicional desde a Grcia Antiga), o "caligrama" est presente nesta exposio em poemas que usam da frase ou palavra para desenhar o objeto (como nos poemas de Sylvia Herrmann e Gregg Zimmer) ou de letras que, perdendo sua significao lingstica, assumem outra na representao de uma dada figura (exemplificado em poemas como o de N. N. Argaaraz). Numa segunda espcie de visualidade do verbal, podemos encontrar poemas em que as palavras espalham-se pelo espao da pgina, ou de uma maneira solta, onde o branco assume significados variados, ou onde esse espao e esquadrinhado pelo arranjo geomtrico de palavras sonoramente semelhantes. No primeiro caso, que podemos chamar de "espacialismo" propriamente dito (exemplo nos poemas de Andres Athilano ou Francisco Peralto), a origem mais remota encontra-se no clssico "Un Coup de Ds", de Stephane Mallarm, e se caracteriza ainda hoje pelo modo bastante livre e subjetivo de arranjar as palavras ou letras no espao da pgina. No segundo caso, a ocupao do espao dada por uma ordenao geomtrica das palavras e pela semelhana sonora entre elas, a substituir a sintaxe tradicional da frase. Aqui estamos diante do "concretismo" potico, sedimentado na dcada de 50, inicialmente no "Manifesto da Poesia Concreta", do sueco, nascido no Brasil, Oyvind Fahlstrm, e no livro de poemas "Constelaes", do suo-boliviano Eugen Gomringer, ambos de 1953,

e marco da poesia brasileira com a Expo Nacional de Arte Concreta (1956/57), o "Plano Piloto para a Poesia Concreta" (1958) do grupo Noigandres, e os poemas "A AVE" e "SOLIDA", de Wlademir Dias-Pino, que no obedeceu a esses padres de composio exatamente. Poemas como os apresentados por James Johnnson, ou Arrigo Lara-Totino (poeta do incio do movimento) acentuam a natureza construtiva e estrutural da poesia concreta, em comparao com a linguagem abstrativista informal do livre-espacialismo (contraponto que se far presente at nas vertentes mais recentes da "poesia visual", como se ver frente). Uma terceira espcie da visualidade do verbal esta presente na poesia de Thalia, e que denominamos "logograma" em homenagem aos poemas do brasileiro Pedro Xisto, tambm presentes nesta mostra. So poemas em que a letra (no mais a palavra) metaforiza (no mais desenha figurativamente) uma idia (no mais um objeto fsico, como nos caliqramas). O "design" do sgno verbal aqui um "diagrama" visual de um significado. Pode-se notar uma quarta espcie de visual do verbal em poemas que apresentam uma retomada da sintaxe tradicional e do discurso verbal, mas o fazem com um aparato visual sobre a palavra de modo a criar uma "embalagem" do texto. Particularmente forte na recente poesia brasileira, esses poemas chamam cores e formas para reforar o discurso verbal, tal como postulava a teoria do movimento neoconcreto de poesia, no final da dcada de 50. Podem ser observados, como exemplos, poemas de Valnei Andrade e Miekal And. Isso que denominamos "poema-embalagem"

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denota a busca de uma recuperao de riquezas semnticas que talvez s a palavra em sua articulao lingstica consiga produzir. Por outro lado, a poeticidade da comunicao fica toda depositada no verbal, enquanto que o aspecto visual aparece mais como um reforo de arte-final. No sentido oposto do "poema-embalagem", caminha o que podemos denominar "letrismo", (como uma derivao do 'movimento "letrista" da dcada de 40), onde o elaborado tratamento grfico dado letra acaba desfazendo qualquer aspecto semntico. A letra sofre um processo de exacerbao visual que libera toda potencialidade grfica do seu design, como nos poemas de Clemente Padn ou Fernando Aguiar, entre outros. Outras vezes o "letrismo" assume a conformao de quadros geomtricos feitos de letras, com a mesma rarefao semntica do primeiro tipo, e que pode ser visto em trabalhos como os de Karl Kempton ou Miroljub Todorovic. Como ltima espcie da visualidade do verbal, j nos limites da palavra, onde a textura da verbalidade est esgarada a um ponto de quase irreconhecibilidade, temos a questo da escritura, da quase-escrita que podemos chamar de "escriturasura" (aproveitando o "scribbledhobbled" joyceano). uma vertente que se pe em contraponto com o "letrismo" da mesma forma que o "espacialismo" se diferenciava do "concretismo" enquanto no "letrismo" o desmantelamento da escrita verbal obedece a uma ordenao construtiva da visualidade, a "escriturasura" marcada pelo abstracionismo informal, e se localiza no centro das propostas surgidas no fim da dcada de 60

para solucionar a crise da escritura concreta (aqui, ao que parece, como um smbolo das vertentes estruturalistas ou racionalistas da poesia de vanguarda) Proposta terica da ento nascente "poesia visiva" italiana, o que aqui denominamos "escriturasura" incorpora ao produto-poema o ato de faz-lo, trazendo a tona a origem da prpria palavra "poesia" (do grego "poesis" = ato de fazer algo) como tema central dos poemas. Assim, na "escriturasura" a caligrafia e um ndice do poeta e aponta para um gestualismo que desemboca na poesia performtica, ao mesmo tempo que assume um indeterminismo e um erro latentes em toda atividade de criao. Essa "escriturasura" se d em poemas onde apenas a prpria caligrafia est presente (ver trabalhos de Gilberto Jos Jorge ou Ana Hatherly) ou em obras que contam com desenhos, fotos e imagens compondo o todo com a escritura predominante (como nos poemas de Karla Sachse au Rea Nikonova), o que j prefigura o "poema-colagem" analisado frente. Casos especialssimos da "escriturasura" so os trabalhos de artistas cuja lngua de origem propicia, pela prpria natureza caligrfica de sua escrita, esse estilo como uma decorrncia natural. So os casos de Mohammed S. Saggar com a escrita rabe e Yutaka Akiya / Mari Imai com o ideograma. O visual alheio ao verbal Quando a imagem no s o aspecto grfico da palavra, a visualidade se apresenta em fotos, desenhos e sinais grficos combinados com signos

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verbais, que, por sua vez, apresentam sua prpria conformao grfica. Podemos distinguir dois modos de articulao nessa espcie de poesia visual, ambas caracterizadas por uma independncia formal entre imagens e palavras. Uma primeira espcie, que denominamos aqui "poema-ilustrao", tipificada por um descasamento grfico entre palavras e imagem de modo a apresentar ou o signo visual como ilustrao do texto ou o texto como uma legenda da imagem. No primeiro tipo, h uma recuperao da discursividade verbal, como naquilo que denominamos "poema-embalagem". Porm aqui no mais o grafismo da palavra, mas uma ilustrao do texto que se faz presente, como pode-se ver em poemas como os de Harry Polkinhorn ou Pedro Juan Gutierrrez. Outras vezes, a imagem assume maior importncia em virtude da riqueza tcnica de sua reproduo e impresso, como nos casos de Sarah Jackson ou Liliana Grinberg, e ento pode-se dizer que o discurso verbal passa a ser uma legenda da imagem, como um ttulo a nomear e adensar semanticamente um quadro plstico. Esse ltimo tipo abre condies para um estilo especial de ironia verbo-visual onde o texto subverte e glosa a imagem, distorcendo seus significados comuns. o caso da poesia de Sebastio Nunes ou Antonio Lizrraga. Alm do "poema-ilustrao", o descasamento entre imagem e palavra pode se dar sob o princpio da "colagem", em que a articulao entre eles arbitrria e no visa a uma recuperao de significados do poema. Pelo contrrio, esse tipo, a que podemos denominar "poema-colagem", prope a dessemantizao da

poesia e se situa como uma derivao da "escriturasura", com freqncia fundindo-se com ela. Sobre esses dois tipos ergueu-se a "poesia visiva" italiana com suas ramificaes (como a poesia metagramtica, a arqueolgica, a sonora e a performtica). A mesma proposta de privilegiar o aspecto grficovisual dos poemas em detrimento das elaboraes significativas encontrou, a mesma poca, repercusso tambm nos movimentos do "poema-processo" brasileiro e no "signalismo" iugoslavo. O princpio da "colagem", criado no cubismo j com a funo de afastar as imagens visuais de suas referncias externas a sua prpria materialidade, aparece na poesia futurista. Se no incio do sculo esse princpio esttico buscava representar a rapidez e a simultaneidade informacional trazidas pelas novas tcnicas ligadas a eletricidade, o "poemacolagem" atual parece denotar a prpria crise de concepo de arte e de poesia. Ao lanar mo de tcnicas e linguagens confundidas numa articulao propositalmente catica onde a apreenso sensorial anula a leitura de significados, o "poema-colagem" corporifica a esttica da ps-modernidade, enquanto uma faceta sensorialista da prpria modernidade que assalta o panorama de toda a cultura no vcuo das concepes intelectualistas. Os "poemas-colagem" adentram vrias das linguagens que tipificam as outras tendncias da "poesia visual", e o fazem submetendo as formas articulatrias a uma dominante plstica que faz com que muitas vezes a fruio do observador seja igual a que se tem frente a uma obra de artes plsticas. Assim, elementos da "escriturasura" so encontrados

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nos "poemas-colagem" de William Xerra; a "letrismo" marca a colagem de Stephen Jacob; a performance caracteriza poemas como as de Guy Schraenen; a arte-pop e a base de trabalhos como as de Filimir; e a estilo irnico tambm encontra espao no poema de autores como Ruben Tani, em especial "On Velzquez". A articulao verbo-visual Uma espcie ltima de "poesia visual" caracterizada pelo princpio da "montagem" e se assenta sabre a articulao de alguns poucos signos (verbais e visuais) em funo de uma recuperao semntica que a "poema-colagem" procura anular. Em mostra realizada em dezembro de 1985 neste mesmo Centro Cultural So Paulo, demos a esse procedimento a nome "poesia intersignos", pois que a funo potica da comunicao se manifesta a partir de uma articulao entre signos visuais e verbais de modo a produzir uma forma semantizada. A "montagem", tal como a definia em sua faceta mais desenvolvida o cineasta Serguei Eisenstein, tem por procedimento uma combinao formalmente motivada (ao contrrio da plasticidade livre da colagem) de dois ou mais dados, e tem por produto a criao de um campo de significados que uma leitura atenta deve ser capaz de apreender (ao inverso da "colagem", onde toda apreenso e sensorial e anti-semntica). Tambm no "poema-montagem" outros tipos da "poesia visual" encontram-se presentes, mas subsumidas numa construo visual mente mais limpa. Assim, a "escriturasura" retrabalhada num

jogo de sombras e silhuetas com a imagem nos poemas de Michele Perfetti;o "letrismo" organizado de modo a criar possveis leituras semnticas nos trabalhos de Mirella Bentivoglio; o anti-conteudismo grfico do "poema-processo" ganha contornos significantes no poema de Neide Dias de S; o readymade interferido e usado na construo motivada da montagem de John Furnival; a arte-pop, que sugere a "colagem", organizada em "montagens" por Richard C.; e a "montagem" comporta leituras de significados mesmo em obras onde no h palavra, como nos poemas de Miron Agafitei e Florivaldo Menezes. Percebem-se em toda analise tipolgica aqui desenvolvida algumas caractersticas bastante ntidas. A primeira que os procedimentos tipificadores se misturam e se entrecruzam a todo momento, devendo o estudo classificatrio detectar a "dominante" do poema, que faz com que elementos diversos se subsumam no procedimento mais marcante. Segundo que, se for possvel falar em alguma dualidade num campo de manifestaes to variadas como a "poesia visual", podemos dizer que a "poema-montagem" (ou "poesia intersignos") est para o "poema-colagem" assim como o "letrismo" est para a "escriturasura", e o "concretismo" est para a "espacialismo". Corresponderiam a duas linhas mestras que informam a potica contempornea; a primeira, de um classicismo intelectualizante de cunho construtivista; a outra, de carter informal, cageno, barroco, mais dirigida a apreenso sensorial. Uma terceira caracterstica geral da "poesia

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visual" estaria depositada no fato de que ambas as linhas mestras apontam para uma integrao total as matrizes bsicas das linguagens (a verbal, a visual e a sonora). Mas se essa totalizao incorporou a visualidade, fez com que a poesia se esvaziasse do aspecto sonoro que o signo lingstico faz ressaltar no discurso potico. Portanto, faz parte das instigaes que se pem para os poetas visuais a reincorporao do som ao poema. Na vertente do "poema-montagem", essa reincorporao totalizante traria o som no mais enquanto a oralizao da palavra (assim como, na poesia intersignos, a imagem no mais a visualidade da palavra apenas). O som de qualquer espcie (rudo ou msica) teria uma funo de implantar novos significados na construo de palavras e imagens. Criar-se-ia uma articulao formal entre verbalidade, visualidade e sonoridade que produziria uma montagem supercondutora, onde a comunicao exigiria do observador um integral aproveitamento dos sentidos, em funo de uma decifrao das hipteses de leitura do poema. Arriscando-nos elaborao de um poema-exemplo para essas propostas, pedimos a licena dos articulistas deste catlogo para usar o canto direito inferior de suas pginas. A se ver um poema ("O Inserto") que deve ser manuseado, folheando-se o catlogo de trs pra frente, com a ponta dos dedos em velocidade, fazendo das pginas lminas de um desenho animado. O movimento ordenar o verso alexandrino: "O inserto bate as asas contra as leis da escrita". O farfalhar das folhas entra como

uma informao que, primeira escuta, um simples rudo contra a leitura da frase, mas que, em seguida, o prprio inseto em desespero contra a transparncia enganadora do vidro que se materializa pela decifrao intersgnica. um poema-proposta que bem poderia caracterizar a montagem totalizante de uma possvel poesia supercondutora. So instigaes que ficam ao final deste rpido estudo sobre os amplos caminhos da poesia contempornea. E nem discutimos o que vem a ser poesia...

as citaes desse texto referem-se a poemas reproduzidos neste catlogo.

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INSTIGAES A PARTIR DOS ELEMENTOS VISUAIS NA POTICA HISPANO - AMERICANA DE VANGUARDA

Amlio Pinheiro Brasil

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I
Gostaria de vincular algumas anlises a respeito do uso de elementos visuais diversos em poesia hispnica da Amrica Latina, durante a choque poltico/ esttico/cultural das primeiras dcadas deste sculo, a necessidade e pertinncia, dentro da chamada vanguarda, de elaborar projetos especificamente diferenciados de construo e leitura, embora comprometidos com o fluxo informacional disseminado a partir do ocidente europeu. A palavra diferena luta aqui contra trs hipteses que, mesmo combinadas, restringem o alcance do seu funcionamento produtivo (produo esttica: estruturas em movimento gerando aes transformadoras de leitura, a cada poca e lugar, na pgina/no mundo): 1. Uma interpretao exagera a influncia das tcnicas importadas, derivadas do conflito entre tradio e ruptura, trazido violentamente a luz, na Europa das vanguardas, pelo processo de recrudescimento e esgotamento das "energias utpicas" (Habermas: 1985) no Estado moderno, sem relacionar tais influncias e processos a intruso de outros processos culturais mltiplos, movedios e polifnicos, onde uma certa tcnica herdada se fortalece e transforma pelo contato com um vasto material "residual" e "molecular" (Willians: 1977: 35-42 e 108-112), que acossa a cultura dominante regional ao mesmo tempo que permuta solues construtivas com a material selecionado internacionalmente. O prprio Gramsci (1985 178) j acentuava que "as inovaes ocorrem por meio da interferncia de diversas culturas, o que se d de diversas maneiras... Pode haver interferncia e uma influncia 'molecular' dentro de uma nao, entre vrios estratos etc; uma nova classe dominante suscita alteraes 'em massa', mas as jarges das vrias profisses, de sociedades especficas, causam inovaes de um modo molecular". 2. Outra posio torna excessiva e quase exclusiva a predominncia dos fatores tidos como nacionalizantes e impregnados de uma tradio

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hispnica na linha discursivo-verbalista e colonizante, terminando por considerar a prtica da visualidade no poema como secundria, forasteira e episdica. No leva na devida conta sequer os mecanismos no-verbais de montagem poemtica e cultural que as prprias vanguardas europias vieram haurir neste continente, ou que para l foram levados por certos andarilhospoetas. Tal tendncia, praticada por crticos tambm no hispnicos, alimenta, contra a mundializao recproca na cultura e na esttica, a predominncia de uma espcie de folclorismo centrpeto, unitrio e monolgico. Esquecem-se tambm a as manifestaes perifricas cuja operatividade descentrada no pode catalogar-se, por mais telrica que seja, num localismo manobrvel decorativamente. 3. A terceira interpretao, apesar de assinalar o fenmeno de assimilao de culturas procedido pelas estticas da Amrica Hispnica (superando os excessos internacionalizantes e nacionalizantes das posies anteriores), confere diferena do continente americano uma homogeneidade espiritual reconciliadora e originria, em alteridade oposicional ao Velho Mundo, que reduz o processo diferenciado e multiplamente determinado a pares simtricos buscando soluo. Mesmo Paz (1976: 152) tende a isso por vezes ao dizer que "ns, hispano-americanos, estamos condenados a busca da origem ou, o que tambm igual, a imagina-la. Uns e outros nos parecemos, se em algo nos parecemos, em nos sentirmos mal no presente. Somos os prfugos de todas as eternidades, sem excluir o tempo circular de Confcio". Trata-se de ver como certos poetas radicais, inclusive quando se utilizam da bateria grfico-visual, vo alm das posies acima esboadas, fortalecendo

o dilogo centrfugo no redutvel a generalizaes unificadoras e ontologizantes: Girondo, Vallejo, Tablada, Huidobro. II Desde o primeiro livro, Veinte Poemas para ser Ledos em el Tranva, (1922) Oliverio Girondo, como o prprio titulo anuncia, pratica uma espcie particular de devorao cosmopolita, veloz e simultanesta, onde o exerccio cubista fica a servio da deformao grotescocarnavalizante e pardico-poltica (qualquer cena citadina que o olho redesenha semovente um espao de intercmbios semitico-polticos), e onde as caricaturas do autor se incluem de modo no ilustrativo-ornamental. Na apresentao desse livro, Jorge Schwarz (1983 118) j avisa que "os princpios de montagem cubista, destinados a criar o rnultiperspectivismo, so sutilmente utilizados por Oliverio Girondo na organizao do texto". Tornemos um poema como Croquis en la Arena (1968 56-58):

23

CROQUIS EM LA ARENA La maana se pasea en la playa empolvada de sol. Brazos. Piernas amputadas. Cuerpos que se reintegran. Cabezas flotantes de caucho.

Al tornearles los cuerpos a las baistas, las olas alargan sus virutas sobre el aserrn de la playa. !Todo es oro y azul! La sombra de los toldos. Los ojos de las chicas que se inyectan novelas y horizontes. Mi alegra, de zapatos de goma, que me hace rebotar sabre la arena.

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 * Por ochenta centavos, los fotografos venden los cuerpos de las mujeres que se baan. Hay quioscos que explotan la dramaticidad de la rompiente. Sirvientas cluecas. Sifones irascibles, con extracto de mar. Rocas con pechos algosos de marinero y corazones de esgrimista. Bandadas de gaviotas, que fingem el vuelo destrozado de un pedazo blanco de papel.

Afora funcionar como a sexta estrofe, "verdadeira estrofe visual" (Schwartz: 1983: 123) do poema, a moderna figura do ento fotgrafo ambulante faz convergir sobre si, em vaivm, no seu design debochado,

o amlgama carnavalizado das imagens-escrituras lapidadas pelo corte cubista que alterna sries longas e curtas. Esboados em areia, o escrito e o desenhado insinuam-se, mutuamente, como construo destrutvel: a tarefa carnavalizadora atinge, o prprio gnero que se pratica. O fotgrafo, representante metafrico da gratuidade pessimista das relaes urbanas ("Por ochenta centavos, los fotgraafos vendem los cuerpos de las mujeres que se baan"), mostra-nos a foto recente de umas ndegas gordas que poderiam completar um fragmento da segunda estrofe. Repare-se tambm que Girondo combina a presena da figura desenhada, da escrita cubista e de ressaltos grfico-hiperblicos. Aqui, para alm do caligrama apollinairiano (onde h uma traduo literal do verbal para o visual), h uma constante superposio e justaposio entre os dois sistemas de cdigos, que se lem separadamente, mas tambm um no outro, ainda que o mbito de atuao semntica da escritura seja bem mais extenso e intenso. (Nessa direo, o caligrama bicolor Espantapjaros (1932) no significa, a nvel de renovao visual, um grande avano na potica girondiana.) interessante ver como os vrios procedimentos, em Girondo, mobilizam criticamente o referencial mundano que se quer, como texto potico, manchar. Essa inteno dirigida e que talvez ainda mantenha a inteireza lexical das palavras com que o autor hiperboliza o sentimentalismo decadente do grande burgo: "Hay quioscos que explotan la dramaticidad de la rompiente". Em En la Masmdula (1954) P, onde Girondo levar "su baba" e "su epilepsia" ao magma da construo verbal. Parece que em Oliverio Girondo atinge um

25

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ponto crtico o acoplamento das tcnicas literrias contemporneas (de que vorazmente se alimentam os poemas) e uma sorte de pessimismo produtivo (Sbato: 1974 140-147) que destroa o que ele prprio chama de "preconceito do sublime", na Epgrafe dos Veinte Poemas: "Ningn prejuicio ms ridculo que / el prejuicio del sublime". tal acoplamento, ressaltado na outra fala epigrfica do livro, que acentua grotescamente o carter digestivo-transformador, anti-essencialista, das suas prticas poticas "Cenculo infernal, com a certeza reconfortante de que, em nossa qualidade de latinoamericanos possumos o maior estmago do mundo, um estmago ecltico, librrimo, capaz de digerir, e de digerir bem, tanto uns arenques setentrionais ou um cuscuz oriental, como uma becasina cozida ao fogo ou uns desses chourios picos de Castela" (Girondo: 196: 47). E a se integram, polifonicamente, exponenciando Bakhtin, as tcnicas importadas, a crtica social (essas conjunes esttico-polticas a serem resgatadas) e certo substrato sensvel, arquivado consciente e inconscientemente, da americanidade na sua verso argentinizante (que tem a ver com a situao histrico-geogrfica do pas desde a colonizao, sua formao lingstica, suas correntes imigratrias, seus componentes forneos ... etc) . III O rigor de Vallejo para com a costumeira adoo, no filtrada e aculturada, do arsenal tecno-esttico do ocidente europeu, leva-o a arrolar a seguinte listagem de fatores j utilizados e que deveriam ser, portanto,

superados na Amrica Latina (Vallejo 7/5/1927) : "1) Nueva ortografia. Supresin de signos puntativos y de maysculas. (Postulado europeo, desde el futurismo de hace veinte aos, hasta el dadasmo de 1920). 2) Nueva caligrafa del poema. Facultad de escribir de arriba abajo com' los tibetanos e en crculo o al sesgo, como los escolares de Kindergarten, facultad, enfin, de escribir en cualquier direccin, segn sea el objeto o emocin que se quiera sugerir graficamente en cada caso. (Postulado europeo, desde San Juan de la Cruz y los benedictinos del siglo XV, hasta Apollinaire y Beaudouin.) 3) Nuevos asuntos. Al claro de luna sucede el radiograma. (Postulado europeo, en Marinetti, como en el sinoptismo poliplano.) 4) Nueva mquina para hacer imgenes. Sustitucin de la alquimia comparativa, que fue el nudo gordiano de la metfora anterior, por la farmacia aproximativa y dinmica de lo que se llama rapport en la poesa d'apres guerre. (Postulado europeo, desde Mallarm, hace cuarenta aos, hasta el surreaalismo de 1924.) 5) Nuevas imgenes. Advenimiento del poleaje inestable y casustico de los trminos metafricos, segn leyes que estn sistematicamente en oposicin con los trminos estticos de la naturaleza. (Postulado europeo, desde el precursor Lautramont, hace cincuenta aos, hasta el cubismo de 1914.) 6) Nueva conciencia cosmognica de la vida. El horizonte y la distancia, adquieren inslito significado, a causa de las facilidades de comunicacin

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y movimiento que proporciona el progreso cientfico e industrial. (Postulado europeo, desde los trenes estelares de Laforgue y la fraternidade universal de Hugo, hasta Romain Rolland y Blaise Cendrars.) 7) Nuevo sentimiento poltico y econmico. EI espiritu democrtico y burgus cede la plaza al espritu comunista integral. (Postulado europeo, desde Tolstoi hace cincuenta aos, hasta la revoluucin superrealista de nuestros das.)", Como se v, no se trata de que Csar Vallejo negasse a importncia e a marca deixada por tais movimentos, pois reconhecia (Vallejo: 23/12/1927): "De Mallarm a Guillaume Apollinaire. Tal es la cordelada en la potica francesa. El tiempo ir dicindolo, ms y ms claro, con su enorme vozarrn". O que no admitia que quaisquer desses materiais da modernidade no passassem pelo filtro seletivo de uma nova reassimilao restauradora (Vallejo: 7/10/1926): "Los materiales artsticos que ofrece la vida moderna han de ser asimilados y convertidos en sensibilidad. El telgrafo sin hilos, por ejemplo, est destinado, mas que hacernos decir "telgrafo sin hilos", a despertar nuevos temples nerviosos, profundas perspiccias sentimentales, amplificando vivencias y comprensiones y densificando el amor: la inquietud entonnces crece y se exaspera y el soplo do la vida se aviva. Esta es la cultura verdadera que da el progreso; ste es su nico sentido esttico, y no llenarnos la boca con palabras flamantes". Da que o poeta peruano tenha partido para a atualizao, em seus poemas trlcicos, da mais criteriosa aplicao dos mtodos de montagem cintico-cubistas, a la Gris, onde vemos a participao de trades numricas, mostrurios de linguagens, a

chamada "gramtica das faltas" (Balln Aguirre: 1979: XXVIII) e,ainda, elementos grfico-visuais. Mas se em Girondo a necessidade da relao entre escritura e visualidade dirigia-se rnobilidade crtico-poltica da urbe, com Vallejo ele passa a servir como amostragem da convizinhana potico-poltica entre texto e corpo, e de como esse corpo morituro, rfo e sseo o fator bsico, intransfervel, atingido pelas imposies de tempo e espao. Veja-se o caso do poema XX de Trilce,
XX Al ras de batiente nata blindada de piedra ideal. Pues apenas acerco e1 1 al 1 para no caer. Ese hombre mostachoso. Sol, herrada su nica rueda, quinta y perfecta, y desde ella para arriba.

29

Bulla de botones de bragueta, libres, bulla que reprende A vertical subordinada. El desage jurdico. La chirota grata. Mas sufro. Allende sufro. Aquende sufro. Y he aqu se me cae la baba, soy una bella persona, cuando el hombre guillermosecundario puja y suda fe1icidad a chorros, al dar lustre al calzado

de su pequea de tres aos.

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Engllase e1 barbado y frota un lado. La nia en tanto pnese el ndice en la lengua que empieza a deletrear los enredos de enredos de los enredos, y unta el otro zapato, a escondidas, con un poquito de saliba y tierra, pero con un poquito, no m .s.

textualmente, pedem o seu lugar na histria, em grafemas que subitamente mostram a sua cicatriz grfica, a sua ferida-grama, contra a fala j fichada do discurso. IV Situado experimental e energeticamente entre o modernismo hispnico e as vanguardas da virada do sculo, o mexicano Jos Juan Tablada e um termmetro pendular desse perodo de transies inventivas, que f-lo passar, em contatos com ismos e viagens, pelo haicai (que introduziu na lngua espanhola), pelo caligrama (ao mesmo tempo que Apollinaire) e pelo poema grfico. Octavio Paz (1966 444), seu grande admirador, assim o apresenta, em Poesia en Movimiento: "Modernista en su primer etapa de aqu tal vez hereda el gusto por la palabra, la aventura y el viaje: la nocin del arte como cambio perpetuo Jos Juan Tablada defendi esta corriente en la Revista Moderna (1898-1911)" E o prprio Tablada esclarece essa importante noo de sua esttica, numa carta a Lpez Velarde (1910) "Todo depende del concepto que se tenga del arte. Hay quien lo cree esttico y definitivo; yo lo creo en perpetuo movimiento y en continua evolucin como los astros y como las clulas de nuestro cuerpo mismo. La vida universal puede sintetizarse en una sola palabra: movimiento. El arte moderno est en marcha, y dentro de l la obra personal lo est tambin sobre si misma, como el planeta, y alrededor del sol". Tablada realiza seus experimentos na encruzi-

onde, afora comprimirem-se todos os procedimentos indicados no pargrafo anterior, o A maisculo do verso 9, prolongando-se nos outros dois do verso 11 ("Allende sufro. Aquende sufro"). delineia a figura desdobrada de um imponente e "subordinado" adulto a urinar, com "bulla de botones de bragueta" (verso 7). A dolorosa mofa recai, a partir das presses entre o auditivo e o grfico-visual, nas sries sseas, corporais e gestuais que atravessam a postura fsica da espcie na histria. Vallejo, nessa trilha, remaneja e destila a tradio mallarmeana e/ou a vertente huidobriano-cubista (mais a tradio barraco-quevediana, as multilinguagens limenhas, o riso descolonizante, os estratos incaicos, etc) .. O sabor da interpretao reside justamente nessa descoberta da contaminao construtiva entre autores, pela via da plurideterminao que ressalta a complexidade, fazendo participar da obra marcas estruturais especificamente perifricas que se envolvem com o conjunto significante. Nos trs ltimos versos, a garatuja infantil, fonicamente salivosa, revela o titubeio operativo do poeta que ao falar se engasga, envergonhado do adulto, e destri a silabao lexical. Os lquidos humanos aqui,

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lhada entre as ltimas prticas modernistas/ simbolistas e a necessidade de se repensar o mundo como possibilidade de reconstruo fsica visvel, espacializada e sintetizvel. Roggiano (1980) ressalta justamente que "el modernismo haba sido la culminacin de una potica de Occidente, concentrada, sobre todo, en el simbolismo francs, mxima expresin del individualismo antropocntrico como antologia del ser y sus significados ( .... ) Haba que recuperar, por tanto, al valor espacial y al objeto en su integriidad visible. Esta tarea la cumplira el cubismo, con el cual conectar Tablada a su regreso de Oriente, donde experimento con el poema grfico. Lo cual bien puede hacernos pensar que el viaje de Tablada , al Japn, en 1900, fue una decision deliberada, de necesidad impuesta por' una toma de conciencia y de ruptura histrica" (e una-se a esse mosaico o fato de que o mexicano era estudioso da, arte pre-hispnica e popular, alm de comprometido amigo de pintores como Orozco e Rivera). Os melhores poemas de Tablada enfrentam a exigncia de, ao mesmo tempo, pelo menos, afastar-se da imagtica modernista decadente e esquivar-se da facilidade caligramtica (j praticada anteriormente, em lngua hispnica, pelo uruguaio Acuna de Figueroa, no sculo XVII (Argaaraz 1986: 36)), dirigindo-se a uma estruturao grfico-espacial que mobiliza a leitura para alm do ornamento e do fisionmico. Ao comentar o poema La Venus China, Roggiano (1980) aponta o trajeto do mexiicano: "La presencia fsica, su visualidad grfica, casi expresionista, es lo que aqui resalta, a pesar de la inoperancia potica de su lengllaje decadente. De

esto al poema Luna, donde la disposicin grfica es predominante, solo hay un pas. Y ser el que lo llevar a la modernidad de las vanguardias, a un aspecto predominante del vanguardismo: el de la espacialidad, una verdadera nueva poca en la poesa de Tablada, como veremos a continuacin. Comprende los aos de 1919 a 1924, que coinciden con el desarrollo del creacionismo de Huidobro y del expresionismo de Borges (y, en cierto modo, tambin de Vallejo)". Li-po parece ser uma suma concentrada dos arriscados priplos de Tablada, onde convivem, em estruturas circulares mbiles e intercomunicantes, os ideogramas, diagramas, caligramas, exerccios grficovisuais e quase-haicais, numa exacerbao de prticas em rodzio e bumerangue:

la perla de la LUNA La luna es araa de plata que tiende su telaraa e nel rio que la retrata

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 siente el maleficio enigmtico y se aduerme en el vicio del vino luntico

Y Li-Po el divino que se bebi a la luna una noche en su copa de vino

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Dnde est Li-Po?, que lo llamen manda el Emperador desde su Yamen

Roggiano (1981) situa o poema e o livro de que faz parte: "En Li-Po y Otros Poemas Tablada realiza el consejo mallarmeano: 'imiter les Chinois au coeur limpide et fin ... ", pero no olvidemos que estuvo en Nueva York por la fecha en que Duchamps expona sus 'crculos mbiles' y Pound difunda el ideograma chino (Cathay, 1915) sobre adaptaciones de poemas de Li-po hechas por Ernest Fenollosa. Tambin, en ingls, se difundan poemas-carteles de Maiakvski".

No h espao aqui para um percurso, mesmo esquemtico, de toda a rica e variada trajetria de Huidobro dentro do mbito das relaes entre espacialidade, visualidade e grafia. Enquanto o ultravanguardista chileno preparava, de 1918 a 1931, o salto mortal de Altazor (e mesmo antes disso: seu Horizon Carr de 1917), realizava um vasto leque de aberturas intersemiticas no campo do poema, que readaptava conforme suas interpretaes estticas do cubismo de ento, ao mesmo tempo que, atravs de manifestos e encontros, reafirmava hiperbolicamente a pressuposto criacionista da predominncia do trabalho de produo artstica sobre a da natureza. A contribuio de Huidobro anunciada par Max Jacob, nesta dedicatria do Le Cornet Ds (1917): "Ao poeta Vicente Huidobro que inventou poesia moderna sem conhecer os resultados do esforo europeu e cujo lugar entre nos estava predeterminado" . Huidobro realizou experincias com Gris, Delaunay (poemas de vrias cores ilustrados par este ltimo), projetos incluindo bal e msica (com a participao de Stravinsky, Delaunay e do prprio poeta), poemas pintados em blusa e uma exposio de Pomes Peints (1922). Seus exerccios tipogrficos, cada vez mais inventivos, afastaram-no, como mostra Ren de Costa (1981), de Reverdy. Comentando o poema Paysage,

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diz o crtico: "All Reverdy's principles of composition are violated in this poem, where Huidobro gives free reign to his fancy and bends his writing to create a visual landscape. To enhance the total artistic effect, and involve the reader more, the poem was printed sideways, as a two-page centerfold in the already oversized Horizon Carr".

Interessa-nos bastante reparar (na linha especial de preocupaes que cabem neste ensaio) no fato de que a aparelhagem cubo-visual, estruturando-se dentro de um lxico potico em que o poeta-aviador esgrime tanto com termos desgastados quanto com os advindos das novas tecnologias, nunca recai, visto que o poeta reacomoda os movimentos estruturais de leitura e de contgio que se processam entre as pocas e as culturas, na mera enumerao nominal e aditiva de uma pseudomodernidade. este ponto nodal da questo que Ydice (1978: 65) acentua, citando o prprio Huidobro (num lance que aproxima a este do ngreme Vallejo que acabaramos de ver): "Huidobro incluye todos los elementos del 'esprit nouveau' en su poesa (afiches, aviones, telfonos, telgrafo, dreadnoughts, etc), pero, como afirma en una crtica del futurismo, lo que importa es el tratamiento potico del tema y no el tema en s como afirmacin de una nueva poesa: No es el tema sino la manera de producirlo lo que hace ser novedoso. Los poetas que creen que porque las mquinas son modernas, tambin sern modernos al cantarlas, se equivocan absolutamente. Si canto el avin con la esttica de Victor Hugo, ser tan viejo como l; si canto el amor con una esttica nueva, ser nuevo." E esta capacidade de relacionar o temtico e o formal que especifica Huidobro frente a, por exemplo, Cendrars e Apollinaire (Ydice: 1978: 64). Tal processo de incorporao transformadora leva Huidobro a poemas como EXPRESS (sintomaticamente dedicado a Gris e Lipchitz), de Poemas rticos, verdadeiro projeto de plurileituras, onde se integram justaposies cubistas, espaamentos tipo-

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grficos mallarmeanos, lxicos diferenciados, jogos fnico-visuais, a temtica (formalizada) da velocidade e um clima (por enquanto em trem) de viagem que ser radicalizado em Altazor:
EXPRESS Una corona yo me hara De todas las ciudades recorridas Londres Roma Madrid Napoles Pars Zurich

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Silban en los llanos locomotoras cubiertas de algas AQUI NADIE HE ENCONTRADO De todos los ros navegados yo me hara un collar El Amazonas El Sena El Tmesis El Rin Cien embarcaciones sabias Que han plegado las alas Y mi cancin de marinero hurfano Diciendo adis a las playas

Por isso diz Ydice (1978: 102) que "no hay que confundir la aparicin de esta temtica con la obsesin mecanicista de los futuristas o las maravillas del mundo nuevo en la obra de Apollinaire. En la obra de Huidobro hay una correlacin entre la creacin cientfica, tecnolgica, y la creacin potica". E esta correlao se d atravs de um novo modo de arrumar, cubo-metonimicamente, os materiais que compem o poema. VI Nestes apontamentos no haveria espao para o devido percurso, poema a poema, sobre o funcionamento dos elementos visuais na obra potica dos quatro autores tratados. O que se pretendeu aqui foi marcar posio a respeito da necessidade, conforme se anunciou na parte 1, de se resgatar um jogo de proximidades por contagio produtivo e de diferenciaes por especificidade construtivo-material, que se da entre os quatro poetas e o horizonte de internacionalizao que assimilaram, e, num outro plano de correlaes, entre os quatro poetas entre si - jogo esse que tem sua riqueza no seu carter no resolvel, mas sim permutvel e multvoco.

Aspirar el aroma del Monte Rosa Trenzar las canas errantes del Monte Blanco Y sobre el cenit del Monte Cenis Encender en el sol murinte El ltimo cigarro Un silbido horada el aire No es un juego de agua ADELANTE Apeninos gibosos marcham hacia el desierto Las estrellas del oasis Nos darn miel de sus dtiles En la montaa El viento hace crujir las jarcias Y todos los montes dominados Los volcanes bien cargados Levarn el ancla

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 Penso que do j exposto podemos retirar alguns itens que atuam em intensidade diferenciada em cada um dos poetas escolhidos e que alinho sem ordem de precedncia: 1) a deglutio das informaes mundiais (todos os quatro autores foram poetas-viajantes) se da concomitantemente a utilizao sincrnico-diacrnica de materiais pluridiferenciados da cultura primitivonacional, que: a) realimentaram, a partir do Novo Mundo, as prprias vanguardas europias (ritmos primitivos, a estaturia e arquitetura incaico-astecas, etc); b) remontam linguagens perifricas, ou embrionrias, dentro do processo de assimilao do alheio (o riso, o corpreo, os humores, o chulo-ertico, jarges diversos, etc); c) acoplam os dados internacionais aos variados nveis de mestiagem etnolinguistica, e dB mestiagem pardico-critica entre pocas ou correntes, exponenciando-as poeticamente; 2) a assimilao do material vanguardista de importao serve: a) extirpao de todo material nacionalizante no carnavalizvel, tendente ao fortalecimento de leituras mitificantes e unificadoras e a formao de massa dominada politicamente pela f e graa da facilidade regional; b) a que os cdigos mltiplos dominados possam ser mobilizados pelo encontro de tcnicas (conjugao, por exemplo, de novos inventos cinticos com a mobilidade ldicortmico-fnico-visual do continente); 3) H um aproveitamento ativo do cubismo conforme a estratgia de cada poeta, que desconstri/ reconstri, segundo novas leis de contigidade dgitocombinatrias, no espao grfico-visual da pgina, um mundo (o latino-americano) onde os cdigos se

superpem e se imbricam continuamente. Isto foi visto por Haroldo de Campos (1976: 87-97) em Oswald de Andrade, por George Ydice (1978: 281-300) em Vicente Huidobro, por Jorge Schwam (1983) em Girondo e por mim (Pinheiro: 1986) em Vallejo (em cada abordagem as variantes peculiares a cada um se afirmam) o rigoroso cubismo sinttico de Juan Gris serviu, [em muitos casos, como ponto de partida para essa reconstituio ativa de um material mltiplo proliferante, internacional/nacional, sincrnico/diacrnico, atual/ primitivo, entroncado as especificidades poticohistricas de cada autor, e que deveria ser, segundo novas polticas de aproximao, arrumado na pgina. Este critrio evitou que os poetas em questo cassem nos excessos surrealistas ou futuristas, j que tinham sua ateno posta em cortes, condensaes, saltos e espaamentos seletivo- produtivos. 4) Toda a mobilizao do internacionalizante no nacionalizante, a nvel temtico e formal, se d tendo como pano de fundo cultural e histrico um continente onde nem o processo de unificao essencial das diferenas nem "a fora estruturante da sociedade do trabalho abstrato" (Habermas: 1985) puderam estabelecer-se ou completar-se, por forca de contracorrentes e intruses de formas vitais e estticas em ebulio marginal e perifrica, que tendem ao exerccio do contagio das diferenas em textura e mosaico.

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REFERNCIAS BIBLIOGRFICAS
ARGANRAZ, N.N. (1986). Poesia Visual Uruguaya. Montevideo: Mario Zanocchi. BALLON AGUIRRE, Enrique (19791. Para una Definicin de la Escritura de Vallejo. Cesar Vallejo . Obra Poetica Completa. Caracas: Ayacucho. CAMPOS, Haroldo de (1976). Metalinguagem. So Paulo. Cultrix. COSTA, Ren de (1981). On Huidobro. Review 30, 44. GIRONDO, Oliverio (1968). Obras Completas. Buenos Aires: Losada. GRAMSCI, Antonio (19851. Selections from Cultural Writings. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. HABERMAS, Jurgen (19851. A Nova Opacidade: a Crise do Estado-Providncia e a Esgotamento das Energias Utpicas. Rev. de Comun. e Ling. 2, 115128. PAZ, Octavio (1966). Poesia en Movimiento. Mexico: Siglo Veintiuno. _____ (1976). Signos em Rotao. So Paulo: Perspectiva. PINHEIRO, Amalio (19861. Csar Vallejo: o Abalo Corpo grfico. So Paulo: Pau Brasil. ROGGIANO, Alfredo (1980). Jose Juan Tablada: Espacialismo y Vanyuardia. Hispanic Journal 2 (11, 47-55. SABATO, Ernesto (1974). Paginas Vivas. Buenos Aires: Kapelusz. SCHWARTZ, Jorge (1983). Vanguarda e Cosmopolitismo. So Paulo: Perspectiva. VALLEJO, Csar (19271. Contra el secreto Profesional. Variedades 1001. Lima, 7/5/1926. _____ (1926). Poesia Nueva. Favorables Paris Poema 1. Paris, 7/1926. WILLIANS, Raimond (19771. Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. YDICE, George (1978). Vicente Huidobro y la Motiva cin del Lenguaje. Buenos Aires: Galerna.

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A ARTE LATINO - AMERICANA DE NOSSO TEMPO

45

Clemente Padn Uruguai

"Lngua:... conjunto de palavras e modos de falar de um povo ou uma nao." "Linguagem: ... conjunto de sinais que do a entender uma coisa." ("Diccionario Manual de la Lengua Espaola") A palavra nomeia o objeto, no a pedido deste, mas por necessidade do homem que a usa. Desta maneira, erige-se uma gigantesca metfora que substitui a mundo exterior e se estabelece como um intermedirio, um instrumento insubstituvel entre a realidade e a homem, e, conseqentemente, entre os prprios homens, constituindo-se numa linguagem particular a lngua das naes e dos povos. A "lngua" , ela mesma, uma metfora (j que "est" no lugar de outra coisa) e autoriza, no seu mbito, a metaforizao dos objetos representados, transformando-se quase em outra natureza: diz-se "estou aborrecido" ou "sou feliz como um sapo nas tomateiras" ou "ugh", ou mesmo no se diz nada. A primeira expresso algo se refere; na segunda, a

metaforizao alcana outros nveis de expresso (inclusive a potica) ainda que a referido se perca, as vezes, no sistema de referncias de quem fala ou daqueles poucos que a conhecem; com a exclamao, consegue-se maior aproximao entre a expresso e o referido, mas isso graas a sua intencionalidade significativa, sem a qual nenhum som articulado constitui lngua; e, finalmente, por meio do silncio, a anti-expresso ascende; no a outro nvel de lngua, mas a outra linguagem. Operar por metforas com a que em si mesmo outra metfora distancia-nos da funo essencial da lngua, isto , a referir, mas permite dar curso a um dos rasgos que definem a homem: a criatividade, a reinveno do mundo, a fico, a recriao simblica, mas tambm d curso a destituio do existente e a alienao perniciosa que constri "mundos" ideais para sobrep-los aos reais. A metaforizao da lngua h que se somar a ambigidade dos seus elementos constitutivos, as palavras, cuja significao depende e modificada pelo sistema hegemnico ta

46

de referncia comunicacional, bem como pela possesso dos canais pelos quais se transmitem, com cujo complexo assegura-se o predomnio dos valores que preservam seu modelo socioeconmico. Entre a funo referencial e o papel artstico, situa-se o poder planejador da linguagem, no para transformar, mas para induzir a transformao: entre a situao real referida e a situao refervel em determinado momento e lugar, situa-se o conjunto de possibilidades de sua realizao, seja em sentido regressivo (quando o refervel aponta para formas superadas), seja em sentido progressista (quando apela para algo distinto ou indito). E nessa instncia planificadora da linguagem que se enerva a luta ideolgica: as vezes, a batalha pelo significado de uma palavra assume aspectos dramticos. Bem-vinda, ento, a lngua, linguagem ou sistema representativo que nos permita comunicar, seja em sua funo referencial (no seu papel artstico) seja no exerccio de seu poder planejador, mas no a distoro e o aviltamento de suas funes em benefcio do "como se diz" ou da "autoridade de quem o diz", ou do "que belo o modo como se diz" etc, em detrimento da verdade, sepultando a realidade sob um manto de palavras (ou signos, sinais, smbolos) sem sentido ou com sentidos, na maioria dos casos, empregados em benefcio de quem os utiliza. Contra esse uso ideolgico das linguagens que, em muitos casos, oculta o sentido material da atividade artstica, e que nada fornece ao conhecimento -- grosseira manipulao do repertrio social -, transtornando a finalidade essencial das linguagens enquanto produtos de comunicao,

que a arte latino-americana de nosso tempo se levanta. No havia bastado devolver aos signos seu significado unvoco, a maneira dos poetas clssicos, e enfrentar o semantismo fora de si, ideologizado intencionalmente pelo sistema que faz das linguagens os crceres sem grades do presente. Frente a incessante evoluo da sociedade e ao nvel tcnico e cientifico alcanado no seu desenvolvimento, os artistas latinoamericanos extraram da tradio artstica aportes inditos, novas informaes cuias luzes contriburam para solucionar aspectos prprios daquela evoluo, permitindo enfrentar outros problemas e responder outras perguntas num desenvolvimento dialtico contnuo. J em 1970 ("La nueva poesia II", revista "OVUM 10", n 4. set.70, Montevideu, Uruguai) expressava: "O signo substitui o objeto e a ao. A informao no poderia ser transmitida se necessitssemos ter presentes os objetos e as circunstncias da ao sobre as que versa a comunicao. Essa condio, imprescindvel para a comunicao verbal e transmisso de conhecimentos, converteu-se em instrumento de opresso pela deformao de sua finalidade essencial: a representao deixou de servir ao homem para servir ao motor da sociedade, que se dirige, no nosso caso, concentrao das fontes produtivas nas mos de poucos e ao freio do desenvolvimento coerente dessas fontes para a transformao da sua essncia ... A realidade substituda pela sua representao lingstica e a mesma representao assegura, por hbito conceitual, seu predomnio sobre a verdade e a vida. Dos dois elementos do signo (o significante e o significado), e no segundo deles que se fundamenta a deformao; o significante no deixa de ser o que : um objeto ita

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de natureza fnica ou visual, segundo se emita ou se represente graficamente, parcial ou totalmente, j que pela ndole indivisvel do signo no se pode escapar disso. E sobre o significante que se fundamenta a nova poesia, ainda que algumas correntes valorizem e se valham do significado". E tambm com relao manipulao ideolgica das linguagens: "Na medida em que a linguagem afiance e aumente a incognoscibilidade do mundo exterior mediante a deformao de sua funo essencial em beneficia daquela fora determinante, na medida da falsa informao que difunde, no por transformao de seu valor de verdade exclusivamente, mas sim pela autoridade do "como se diz" da representao instalada como um meio de relao imprescindvel entre a indivduo e a mundo exterior, na mesma medida assegurara a ordem que a utiliza em seu proveito" (id.) Desde ento j se caracterizava a ncleo de onde partiria a inovao: os elementos estruturais das linguagens. No mais novas representaes da realidade ou novas formas de combinar os cdigos a maneira das vanguardas histricas, que se valiam dos mesmos meios para estabelecer, pela alterao varivel dos cdigos, seus movimentos literrios ou plsticos. Agora tratava-se daqueles mesmos meios pastas a se expressar em prtica auto-informativa que colocavam em evidncia a falsa idealizao das linguagens (a onipotncia do verbal) e a conseqente fetichizao da fala (ou outra linguagem) em mos dos meios de comunicao de massa que ocultavam sua ndole material, quer dizer, de produto de comunicao criado pelos homens, pelos artistas, e no "fruto da

inspirao divina", do gnio. Esses meios tinham sido levados em conta na arte do passado, mesmo que de forma subjacente, sustentando a semanticidade das linguagens. Os antecedentes so inmeros e variados. Basta recordar a aporte trazido par Mallarm ao fazer usa do espao como elemento expressivo, somado ao ressurgimento do ideograma via Apollinaire, Pound, Huidobro etc, buscando romper a "sucessividade analtica" das lnguas ocidentais. Ao n(vel das artes plsticas, recordemos apenas a valorizao do plano em Czanne, que daria lugar ao cubismo, a liberao das formas em Kandinsky e a arte abstrata. Poesia Concreta Mais prximo de nosso tempo, Max Bill, pintor abstrato continuador dos neoplasticistas holandeses, sobretudo Mondrian, e a Escola de Ulm (de 1946), da Sua, destacavam prioritariamente as unidades expressivas da linguagem plstica a linha, a forma geomtrica, a cor, a espao etc., dando vazo, conjuntamente com as propostas similares de outras artes, ao nascimento do concretismo. A partir de 1951, com o xito de Max Bill na I Bienal de So Paulo, essas tendncias comeam a se difundir em nosso continente. J em 1953 aparecem as primeiras obras dos poetas concretos que, mais tarde, em 1956, a propsito da Exposio Nacional de Arte Concreta, apresentada em So Paulo e no Rio de Janeiro, davam nascimento a uma das correntes artsticas mais influentes de nossos dias. J naqueles momentos eram visveis trs tendncias definidas. A mais conhecida, promovida rita

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pelo grupo "Noigandres" de So Paulo, integrado por Augusto e Haroldo de Campos, Dcio Pignatari e Ronaldo Azeredo, comea por considerar a palavra como um objeto "em si e por si mesmo" em relao ao seu contexto, a estrutura, a imploso conjunta de forma e significado, a extenso e ao tempo, que se submete ao espao, mas conservando seus "instantes sucessivos" (o esquema lgico-discursivo das lnguas ocidentais que cambaleia e s se sustenta graas ao uso do sistema sinttico-estrutural), criando um mbito lingstico especfico que integra a expresso verbal e a no-verbal do poema concreto. Sua plataforma est contida no "PlanoPiloto para a Poesia Concreta", revista Noigandres, n IV, 1958 Essa corrente, tambm conhecida como do "rigor estrutural", gerou a tendncia potica desenvolvida pelo poeta paulista Mario Chamie em seu livro "Lavra Lavra" (1962) e que significa uma volta ao verso linear, pondo a nfase na proximidade e semelhana das palavras. No incio da dcada de 60 nascia a "poesia semi6tica", sob impulso de Wlademir Dias-Pino e, mais tarde, de Dcio Pignatari e Luiz ngelo Pinto. Eram os primeiros esforos para lograr uma potica sem palavras, estabelecendo chaves de similitude conceitual entre elementos plsticos e verbais, isto , tirando o poema do mbito exclusivo da lngua. Outra tendncia surgida daquela generosa matriz inicial do concretismo literrio foi a instaurada por Ferreira Gullar, dando lugar ao "neoconcretismo", cujo texto bsico e "A Teoria do No-Objeto" (Suplemento do Jornal do Brasil, RJ, 1960), onde define o "no-objeto" como um "objeto especial no qual se pretende realizada uma sntese de experincias sensoriais e mentais".

Mas essa sntese s se concretiza com a participao do "espectador". "Sem ele, a obra existe s como potencialidade, esperando o gesto humano que o atualize". Assim se estabelece um dos maiores aportes: a participao ativa do espectador como co-gestor e criador da obra de arte. Tambm ao privilegiar o tempo, que em seu transcorrer gera os sentidos do "noobjeto", da lugar as chamadas artes de ao, como o happening (p. e. no "Poema Enterrado", de Ferreira Gullar), a performance, a ambientao ou instalao, etc muito antes dos muitos cultores destacados destas vertentes de trabalho de hoje. Helio Oiticica, Lygia Clark e Ligia Pape foram figuras de grande destaque desse movimento que, ademais, influiu decisivamente na ao do grupo "Nova Gerao" no Brasil e "Poesia Inobjetual", ou arte da ao, criado por mim, em 1971. Por ltimo, a tendncia "espacional" ou "matemtica" que, mais tarde, em 1967, daria lugar ao movimento "Poema/Processo", surgido a partir da leitura critica das obras apresentadas por Wlademir Dias-Pino ("A Ave", de 1954, e "Solida", de 1956). O "poema/processo" dinamiza a estrutura monoltica do poema, estabelecendo a participao criativa do espectador, interessando no sua informao esttica, mas seu carter consumvel ("lgica do consumo") Essa corrente realiza o isomorfismo espao-tempo num continuo que produz novas informaes alheias ao projeto artstico proposto, segundo a "verso" que provoca no espectador A estrutura e codificada pelo processo, inaugurando novas vias de comunicao: o cdigo intercambivel contra a rigidez da estrutura imvel. Os elementos do "poema/processo"

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crita

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se influenciam mutuamente, enquanto que na estrutura os elementos se integram monoliticamente. Propem-se novas linguagens e possibilidades que potencializam os signos no-verbais "a tomada de conscincia frente a novas linguagens, criando-as ou as manipulando dinamicamente" (Neide e lvaro de S) Separao ntida entre Poesia (problema ligado a uma lngua, de natureza abstrata) e Poema, objeto, produto visual ou ttil (ligado s linguagens, de natureza material). A liberao do poema. "O poema e processo antiliteratura do mesmo modo que a verdadeira mecnica procura o movimento sem frico, ou a eletricidade busca o isolante perfeito" (Wladernir Dias-Pino) Esse movimento, que contou com centenas e centenas de artistas em todo o Brasil, fechou deliberadamente suas atividades em 1972 com um manifesto "Parada - Opo Ttica", onde, junto com uma profunda autocrtica, deixa abertas as possibilidades de novos desdobramentos. Seria injusto, nesta seo, no citar Eugen Gomringer, artista suo-boliviano que desde 1953, vinha realizando experincias polticas similares as do grupo Noigandres, publicando "Constelaes" e o manifesto "Do Verso Constelao" (1955), na Sua (tendo decidido conjuntamente com Dcio Pignatari o nome do movimento) Do mesmo modo, citemos a obra potica do artista uruguaio Ernesto Cristiani, que em 1960 publicou "Estruturas" (que vinha elaborando desde 1954), uma srie. de poemas concretos de carter simblico-metafsico e, tambm, o trabalho equnime de Mathias Goelitz, artista alemo radicado no Mxico que, ao lado de diversas publicaes, organizou a primeira exposio de poesia concreta fora do Brasil, mais precisamente no Mxico, em 1966.

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Poesia Visual Sempre se tendeu a considerar a poesia visual como uma conseqncia formal surgida do concretismo. No obstante, cremos que sua origem tem antecedentes mais remotos. Sem chegar at os ideogramas gregos ou os acrsticos medievais, pode-se dizer que a poesia visual nasce daquela nova considerao sobre os elementos significantes da lngua a partir de, sobretudo, Mallarm e das vanguardas histricas. As palavras e o espao em que se inscrevem passam a ser considerados como objetos passveis de se autoexpressarem e no s como unidades significativas de uma linguagem particular. Os signos, liberados de sua carga semntica, passam a se ordenar de outras maneiras. Assim, a partir das "Palavras em Liberdade" d8 Marinetti e de obras de Kurt Schwitters, Man Ray, Raoul Hausmann, Hugo Ball e outros, desembocam no grafismo gestual e exacerbado dos letristas franceses do final da ltima guerra mundial. Isidore Isou, Lernaitre, Bernard Heidsiek, etc. que daria lugar, no comeo da dcada de 50, a poesia visual, que se vale das letras como elementos plstico-expressivos, e poesia fnica que trabalha com os significantes enquanto sons. Essas correntes, que procedem do letrismo e do concretismo, encontram-se e geram variedade de formas que vo do "espacialismo", promovido pelo poeta francs Pierre Garnier, ao poema multidimensional, ou da poesia semantica a tecnolgica, visiva, novssima etc, cada qual com maior ou menor nfase na significao verbal, adicionando ou no scrita

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imagens, fazendo prevalecer ou no a organizao dos elementos plstico-significativos nu espao etc. Poder-se-ia dizer que h tantas tendncias quantas so os poetas visuais. Na Amrica Latina, essas linhas de trabalho artrtico apareceram no incio da dcada de 60 e se difundiram, principalmente, atravs do circuito das revistas experimentais da poca. Em particular, da "Diagonal Cero" e "Hexgono 71", da Argentina, "La Pata de Palo", da Venezuela, "Ediciones Mimbre', do Chile, e "Los Huevos del Plata" e "OVUM 10", do Uruguai. (Traduo: Philadelpho Menezes)

* texto parcial

escrita

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NOS ANOS OITENTA, ARTE - POSTAL E POESIA VISUAL

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Csar Espinosa/ Leticia Ocharan Mxico

Em meados dos anos 80, margem da produo "reconhecida" pelo circuito crticos-galerias-instituies, duas tendncias, no Mxico, permaneceram em estado latente, larvrio, apesar de contarem com profundas razes histricas e seu desenvolvimento ter percorrido todas as "vanguardas clssicas" a "arte-postal" e a "poesia visual". Sobre a primeira, entre outras numerosas definies existentes, cabe assinalar "Seria a arte-postal o que acabaria com o privilgio mitificador da "aura" do original ao reproduzir massivamente, ao subtrair a arte da critica, ao demolir as contradies, ao democratizar a criao, ao desregionalizar-se com trnsito livre pelo mundo, ao conciliar cdigos, smbolos, grafismos, ao particularizar a leitura do "kitsch", ao humorizar a sociedade erudita, ao criar interferncias visuais ate a saturao, ao preparar a irreverncia paradiscursiva dos "Para-lamas do acontecimento". ( 1 ) Os antecedentes de tal prtica em nosso meio datam de 1972, com o mural-postal apresentado por

Felipe Ehrenberg no Salo Independente. At as anos 1977 /78 organizar-se-iam as primeiras exposies de arte-postal propriamente, promovidas pelos grupos "CRAAG" e "Marco"; este ltimo propiciou o surgimento de outros grupos de vida curta. "Fotostato" e "Algo Pasa". Em 1981, apareceu o "Colectivo- 3", formado por integrantes do anterior "El Colectivo". Por sua vez, membros dos diversos grupos aglutinaram-se no "Solidarte" (Solidariedade Internacional peta ArtePostal), que organizou a mostra "Desaparecidos polticos na nossa Amrica", a qual obteve meno honrosa na I Bienal de Havana, Cuba, em 1984. O "Colectivo - 3" desenvolveu o projeto Poema Coletivo "Revoluo", com 350 artistas de 50 pases, e a maratona de arte-postal "1984 em 1984: que futuro buscamos?", para concluir suas atividades em 1985 com a participao no Salo de Espaos Alternativos do INBA, com uma mostra retrospectiva de seus projetos de arte-postal sob o titulo "POSTARTE. Registros". escrita

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 Em 1985, formou-se a equipe "Ncleo PostArte" para convocar, atravs da rede de arte-postal, a I Bienal Internacional de Poesia Visual e Experimental do Mxico, cuja segunda verso se realiza atualmente, mesmo em vista da quase nula experincia e prtica nos referidos campos em nosso pais. Em ambas as edies, participaram mais de 400 autores de 40 pases, vinte deles, mexicanos. Por sua vez (e nas catacumbas), ambas as correntes (arte-postal e poesia visual) afrontam as reticncias ou a franca hostilidade das autoridades culturais, dos crticos, dos artistas plsticos e poetas profissionais; concitam maior interesse entre desenhistas grficos, estudantes e realizadores de diversas disciplinas da comunicao, em geral, jovens. Sua produo, como ocorre praticamente em toda a Amrica Latina, orienta-se para a crtica poltica e social, entrecruzando as condies de "imediatez" e "testemunho" da arte-postal' com a busca de rigor e renovao nos trabalhos. Para concluir, vlido afirmar que, em boa medida, a arte-postal e a poesia visual so duas faces de uma s moeda. Ainda que a arte-postal se defina principalmente como uma "prtica de comunicao artstica", ligada a situaes imediatas do remetente e do destinatrio, ela compartilha da linguagem da imagem icnica que ultrapassa fronteiras e idiomas, alm das tcnicas de montagem, de contra-informao e expropriao das mensagens da comunicao de massa, como tambm da reciclagem e reelaborao dos trabalhos, que so caractersticas de numerosas produes da poesia visiva, do poema/processo e da poesia intersignos, assim como o so o veto a comercializao e a tendncia a distribuio (quase) gratuita.

Ambas as correntes tem tido um fluxo internacional explosivo desde os anos 60, e se desdobram igualmente a par das prticas do chamado "ps-modernismo", vinculando-se a muitas delas: happening e performance, ambientaes, conceitualismo, minimalismo, arte pobre, corporal e geogrfica, por computador, vdeo ou holografia. Mas tambm reivindicam o legado das "vanguardas clssicas", tanto para dirimir suas contradies como para recuperar seus programas de subverso e utopia, no sentido em que se tem definido o "ps-modernismo crtico ou de resistncia". (2) Fala-se, assim, de produo/reproduo, contraposta a "repetio" a-histrica; de integrao/ inter-relao das artes em oposio a reificao ecltica circunscrita ao aparato dominador; de intertextualidade, diferena, desterritorializao e fronteiridade, em contraposio linguagem performativa massmediatizadora, da disjuno excludente e do antimodernismo conservador... Menipea e "potica carnavalizada", dialogismo e dramatizao, ambivalncia e histria, so as grandes vias da escritura verbal/visual contra a proibio, a "abstrao" imposta pela lei oficial e o discurso monolgico autoritrio.
(1) 'ALMEIDA, Mrcio: "DidEYEtica: una post-lectura de la poesa visual", in "Signos Corrosivos", Ediciones Literarias de Factor, Mexico, 1987, p, 81. (2) FOSTER, Hal: "lntroduccin al posmodernismo", in "La posmodernidad", Ed. Kairs, Barcelona, Espanha, 1985, pp. 7 e ss.

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(Traduo Philadelpho Menezes)

de "Mexico: Posmodernismo sin Vanguardia?", in "Memoria Documental- II Bienal lnternacional de Poesia Visual y Alternativa en Mexico", 1987.

a escrita

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POESIA VISUAL - A ESCRITURA QUE SE VISUALIZA

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Giuliano Falco Itlia

A escritura e seus instrumentos, as suas tcnicas, sempre estiveram no centro das vrias eras culturais da histria da humanidade. E como muitas vezes sublinhou Marshall Mcluhan, a escritura e o que definiu a "Galxia Gutemberg", e caracterizou o mundo ocidental at que, entre os sculos XIX e XX, aparecessem os seus "concorrentes" eltricos e eletrnicos. Tambm aqui, como na Arte-Postal, os primeiros a fazerem uso criativo do meio considerado foram as Vanguardas Histricas, que no tardaram a se dar conta do fato de que a escritura tradicional, tipogrfica, estava a ponto de ser superada. Nasceram assim as "Tavole Parolibere" futuristas, onde as letras eram determinadas pela roupagem tipogrfica, independentes do conjunto, com aspectos curvilneos, em forma de estrelas etc. E enquanto Marinetti se "celebrizava" neste campo, Balla revalorizava a escritura manual e jogava com a ambigidade entre grafia e som. Neste entretempo, os

Dadastas trabalhavam a "materialidade" do elemento verbal, fosse em seu aspecto grfico ou sonoro. Nos tempos prximos a nos, nos anos 60, alguns autores florentinos propuseram ento uma "poesia visual", isto e, uma poesia onde o acento fosse posto sobre a materialidade da escritura, aceitando que esta deveria se consistir na tipografia e onde tambm se consentisse o seu encontro com a imagem. Trata-se do grupo composto por Lamberto Pignotti, Eugenio Miccini, Luciano Ori, Lucia Marcucci, aos quais aderiram outros autores, entre eles Emilio Isgr e Michele Perfetti. A poesia visual teve o mrito de interromper um longo sono de muitas dcadas relativo s vestes da palavra, sacrificada pelos significados mentais (com uma substancial indiferena quanto modalidade da estampa) e de decretar a inevitabilidade de correlacionar palavra e imagens, colhendo ambas
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no grande bazar da produo em srie. Mas nos anos 60 os criadores potico-visuais estenderam os seus campos de ao, dando vida a uma interdisciplinaridade e uma interartisticidade que constituem uma constante do criador esttico contemporneo, sempre mais propenso a empregar suas energias criativas em muitas direes: da pgina a tela, do espao cnico ao vdeo-registro. A poesia visual torna-se assim o lugar da escritura multimedia, da prpria escritura e da comunicao, com uma certa preveno em considerar o produto artstico como "acabado" e pronto para o mercado. (Traduo: Philadelpho Menezes)

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POESIA VISUAL NA IUGOSLVIA

Miroljub Todorovic Iugoslvia

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A poesia visual em nosso pas surgiu e se desenvolveu com o movimento criativo da vanguarda Signalista, que se originou e, de certa forma, tornou-se especfico da cultura iugoslava. As origens do Signalismo esto relacionadas com o ano de 1959 e com as tentativas de se darem novos tons, adaptados a civilizao eletrnica e tecnolgica, a poesia iugoslava, na qual, at ento, vigoravam os princpios do Neoromantismo e do Simbolismo tardio. Essas origens esto vinculadas a linguagem e aos esforos para revolucionar a poesia com novos amlgamas lingsticos das cincias exatas, fsicos, biolgicos, qumicos, astrofsicos e matemticos. Por isso, 0 primeiro nome do movimento e Cienticismo. Um ano depois, a poesia cientista saiu da estrutura da lngua e deu os primeiros frutos inspirados nos caligramas de Apollinaire. Nos anos seguintes (1962 e 1963) essa poesia mais e mais insiste na exatido. A cincia definida enquanto meios poticos e a artificialidade e absurdo da separao entre poesia e cincias so acentuados.

A teoria da relatividade de Einstein proclamada como o maior poema da era moderna escrito em glria ao Homem, e a frmula matemtica fundamental dessa teoria, E = mc2, e enunciada como a metfora suprema. Esse percurso inicial do Signalismo (sob o nome do Cientismo) correu solitrio, quase no notado na literatura iugoslava, num oceano de tradicionalismo e neosimbolismo renovados daquele perodo. Os anos de 1968 e 1969 so cruciais para o Signalismo. O "Manifesto da Cincia Potica", que resume as experincias do perodo anterior, e publicado em 1968. No mesmo ano, o "Manifesto do Signalismo" (Regulae Poesis) e escrito e, no curso do ano seguinte, publicado Ele fornece bases para a formao de um movimento aguerrido com o objetivo de se espalhar e revolucionar todos os ramos da arte e abrir novos processos na cultura pelos experimentos radicais, numa criativa revoluo permanente, especialmente influenciada pela nova tecnologia e pela civilizao visual.
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O Signalismo aumenta suas bases, que at ento contavam apenas com as poucas cincias j mencionadas, e passa a incluir ciberntica, teoria da informao, fenomenologia, teoria da dana e outros. Enquanto na primeira fase a tendncia para trazer certas parcelas da linguagem cientfica para a poesia era evidente, a segunda fase e caracterizada pela descoberta de novas e nunca sonhadas possibilidades trazidas pela ruptura com esteretipos da linguagem potica corrente e da fala, com certos modelos matemticos da estatstica, teoria da dana, mtodos (mquinas) cibernticos e combinatrios. A linguagem torna-se, no verdadeiro sentido da palavra, um material usado algumas vezes pelo poeta em seu xtase de bailarino programado para produzir seus trabalhos. E tambm tpico desse perodo um sbito desenvolvimento da poesia visual, que, havia muito, existia apenas rudimentarmente dentro do movimento. O Signalismo, movimento de vanguarda iugoslavo, um movimento de criao. No terceiro "Manifesto do Signalismo" (1970) e em textos posteriores, empreende-se uma detalhada classificao de novas formas poticas. Em primeiro lugar, assinalado que a poesia representa um conjunto de diversas poesias e mtodos experimentais. Eles so classificados em dois grupos principais. No primeiro esto aqueles que exploram exclusivamente o domnio da lngua. No segundo grupo, esto poesias e mtodos que excluem alguns elementos da lngua operando com signos, ou,

alm do verbal, incluem elementos visuais e vocais. Essa parcela intitulada poesia semiolgica por sua radical ruptura com os limites estabelecidos at ento pela literatura comum, saindo do espao lingstico e penetrando em reas quase inexploradas do ponto de vista literrio: o gesto, o som e a semiologia. Os tipos de poesia semiolgica so a visual, a sonora e cintica, a por computador (parte que opera com estruturas letra-signo) e a poesia gestual. Os poetas iugoslavos trabalham especialmente com a poesia visual. Segundo eles, o objetivo principal dessa poesia e a superao da expresso potica verbal Sua aspirao principal e a gradual desverbalizao e dessemantizao do poema. A letra, o espao e seus processos interativos so as unidades operacionais bsicas das estruturas neo-textuais. Na primeira poesia gestual, o acento colocado sobre o gesto e a ao. A linguagem aqui um processo de unificao dos elementos verbais, vocais e visuais. (Traduo: Philadelpho Menezes)

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didEYEtica UMA PS-LEITURA DA POESIA VISUAL

Mrcio Almeida Brasil

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Tornar possvel o contato visual entre pblico e objeto atravs de modelos de referncia, com a aplicao da experincia semitica a produo potica - eis uma tarefa didEYEtica. A didEYEtica uma leitura semitica. Objetivo encontrar um princpio de contato visual para estabelecimento de uma correlao signo/significante/ significao que permita determinar e organizar a leitura do novo e de novos comportamentos visuais, sem rupturas ou adesismos, sem radicalidades ou reducionismos, revisionismos ou erudies de origem pr-burguesa, que gerem contradies, polmicas vs, superaes vertiginosas, "escolas", ismos-a-mais . A didEYEtica um "salto (do olhar) da humanidade do reino da necessidade para o reino da liberdade" (Marx) Nesse sentido, a didEYEtica projeta no a imagem do objeto como "ser dado", ou mera "representao" formal, no como verso nica, mas a expresso social do real atravs da pluralizao das artes em sua instncia de sntese, do olharcrtico, da percepo do coletivo, do "contedo de

conscincia" (Kant), do estatuto do olho, do nvel de produo potica. A didEYEtica e, pois, sem formalizar qualquer definio apriorstica, ndice de valorizao das referncias sociais produzidas poeticamente com o cdigo "imagem". "Recuperao do referencialismo na sua verdade condicionada, e no j como base de definio." Ou seja: o objeto potico didEYEtico e mltiplo em espcie, multiplicado pelos meios de reprodutibilidade tecnolgica e multiplicador de verses, questionamentos e formas de participao. A didEYEtica se caracteriza pela "mutao" e pela "transferncia" de experincias comuns com a imagem sob uma inteno potica, geralmente uniVERsalizante por sua implicao com o novo, onde quer que ele se faa criativo. A didEYEtica sntese de ismos, mas nenhum mtodo, movimento, seno uma leitura da visualidade. A didEYEtica e p6s-tudo e linguagem de comunicao intencionalmente visual e potica. Seu carter uniVERsal, tendo a referncia nacional como priori
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dade semitica de criao, re-visao e democratizao da mensagem para a olho. DidEYEtica e uni(r)VERso - unificao do ver. A didEYEtica no vai se formalizar (mais) em teorias, padres, dados, princpios irreversveis, uma vez que toda cincia dialtica .- sem viseiras didticas. Contudo, vai considerar - sempre - a experincia "pre" e "ps" visual em todas as partes, pocas e ideologias. Isso faz ressaltar logo que a informao didEYEtica opcional de "olho-para-olho." Vanguarda, didEYEticamente, o que faz sentido sempre. O que serve de exemplo. O que plural no tempo e no espao. Este o contedo didEYEtico maior: "projeto totalizador" - geometria e raio laser, inscrio rupestre e realismo (semitico) ficcional, concretude e escritema, figuralidade e computador, design e ideograma, gesticulao grfica no branco do papel e visualidade exobiide. Aps tudo, "salvar" pelo menos o "sentimento" da emoo - a poema no nvel do poema, da potica e da comunicao -- do homem comum. A didEYEtica tem por inteno por o poema em trnsito, itinerante, espetacular e mallarmgico, fora da gaveta (no indito), fora do espao livresco. O poema didEYEtico o poema de-encontro-a seu "visor" = leitor/ expectador/participante.

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POESIA: OU A INTERPENETRAO DOS SIGNOS

Fernando Aguiar Portugal

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Vivemos o tempo do signo. O tempo em que a poesia deixou definitivamente os discursos para entrar no domnio das formas, no terreno do audiovisual e na dimenso do tctil. Alis, no poderia ser de outro modo, considerando que toda a nossa estrutura vivencial se baseia nos indcios, nos sinais, nos smbolos, nos cdigos. E numa floresta semitica que existimos e comunicamos. Neste contexto, as palavras, como nico recurso expressivo da poesia, tornaram-se um limitado campo de ao perante todos os processos informacionais e cibernticos que atualmente dispomos. Por outro lado, as imagens tem um maior poder comunicativo pela sua intensidade, pelo movimento implcito ou explcito, pela textura, pela cor, pela fora das formas, pela tpida vibrao que sentimos, ao olhar. E principalmente pelo instantneo da leitura. As imagens como linguagem total so apreendidas simultnea e globalmente, abolindo de vez com a leitura linear e seqencial. Mas estas so

apenas um dos modelos de signos conquistados pela poesia. Existem muitos outros. E com quantos mais cdigos o poema lidar, maior ser a sua capacidade de transmitir e de ser assimilado. Por esta razo, e ao contrrio da lingstica, a semiologia vai tendo uma importncia crescente no ato da escrita. A poesia procura, mediante o uso de uma diversidade de sinais, estimular a capacidade de raciocnio e de relacionamento do leitor, criando um envolvimento mais profundo do seu sentido crtico-perceptivo. E, como pelas circunstncias so foradas a isso, as pessoas vo dominando com uma renovada habilidade os diferentes conjuntos de signos, que, aos poucos, vo sendo imprescindveis a um equilbrio interior, e para com a sociedade. Quantos mais cdigos dominarem, e principalmente, quanto maior for a sua capacidade de relacionar esses cdigos entre si, mais aptos estaro a entender o que (n)os rodeia. E por todas as situaes do nosso quotidiano serem cada vez mais codificadas, que a poesia vai, necessariamente, dominar a
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linguagem dos signos. O poeta tem que desenvolver incessantemente as capacidades de todas as reas da linguagem, e, para isso, deve no s dominar a multiplicidade expressiva dos signos, como tambm os deve transformar em signos e linguagens novas, isto , deve ser, ao mesmo tempo, o cientista e o designer da palavra. Cientista como agente explorador de novas formas de linguagem, e designer no sentido de potencializar esteticamente (ess)a linguagem criada. Herbert W. Franke considera que a arte "se revela como fenmeno do domnio da informao". Como tal, na criao de novas linguagens, da esttica a inferir, e do meio a usar como veculo na transmisso do poema que se situa a (inter)ao do poeta como mediador (in)formativo e in(ter)ventivo.

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A PALAVRA DA IMAGEM (ou a poesia metagramtica)

Sergio Cena Itlia

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Desde o momento em que Mallarm escreveu a "Coup de Des", que se pode definir como a germe daquela que mais tarde ser a Poesia Visual, era implcito que esta aventura estaria terminada ao se ultrapassar a fronteira da escritura e, colocando em crise a prprio valor da palavra, ao se tentar um novo caminho da comunicao Metagrama, com efeito, significava literalmente "alm da palavra", mas pra compreender a fundo as implicaes que tal termo comporta no campo potico, necessrio redefinir a prprio conceito de Poesia, numa nova acepo que no rejeite a contexto geral ou a forma da Poesia Visual, mas que por outro lado no tome as diferenas enquanto uma alm-forma que se prope ela mesma como fenmeno. A Poesia Metagramtica parte, ento, de um "zerar" que no programtico, assim como no respondem a um programa geral as linguagens que os vrios autores vo definindo ao se reunirem, na maior parte dos casas, ignorando a trabalho um do outro. Dessa premissa pode-se intuir como a Poesia

Metagramtica mal se presta a uma classificao e como seria arriscado e presunoso de minha parte tentar uma definio que a anlise no resultasse parcial. No obstante, querendo captar estes aspectos fundamentais que fazem com que se possa falar de fenmeno coletivo, pode-se dizer que toda obra singular, vista como fragmento de um contexto geral, pode ser considerada como um Apax Legomenon ampliado, que no assume, alm da unicidade da exceo, a presena obsessiva da regra. Em outras palavras, a obra deve ser "lida" como um texto de escrevente onde a comunicao confiada a um corpus sgnico no convencional Portanto, nem alfabtico, nem ideogrmico, nem ao menos uma pardia deles, como infelizmente acabou sendo boa parte da poesia visual. Na obra metagramtica tudo confiado ao Signo. Vale aqui lembrar que um discurso anlogo pode-se traar para a implicao sonora, que mereceria um discurso parte; limito-me somente a lembrar que a experincia virtualmente metagramtica em
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Poesia Sonora precedeu a Poesia Visual. Ao se aproximar de uma obra metagramtica, seja ela visual ou sonora, o espectador se v facilmente iludido e tem a sensao de se achar diante de uma experincia pictrica ou musical por causa dos materiais e das propeduticas usadas; mas isto verdade no sentido meramente tcnico, pois que a observao desta obra no deve nunca prescindir de uma leitura estritamente ligada ao contexto potico. Se no nos deixarmos cair no engano da aparncia, resultara claro como o trabalho dos signos tinha uma importncia relativa e como contam, sobretudo, a sua associao e, segundo o caso, a sua recproca inter-relao. A relao entre signo e espao reduzida a um mbito restrito: no se busca a extenso mas a profundidade, no a repetio mas a variao. A obra metagramtica, no mais um reflexo de um tema exterior a ela, assume-se como tema, por si mesma se objetualiza, tornando-se testemunha de uma nova condio do ser potico. Abandonados os cifrrios alqumicos, aquilo que ocupa os poetas metagramticos e a tentativa de recuperar a origem da vida pela inveno de uma nova linguagem e talvez de uma mitologia paralela aquela a que nos conduzimos. (Traduo: Philadelpho Menezes)

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A TYPOLOGICAL APPROACH TOWARDS VISUAL POETRY

81

Philadelpho Menezes Brazil

But is this poetry? It is difficult to organize an event and to justify it through an article in which the answer to the first (and most obvious) question can only leave another question - one that has even wider implications - open. This second question to which I now refer is the following: Ultimately, what is poetry? One can attempt to provide an answer by putting forward a lyrical-epiphanic definition. By following a track of this kind, one may finally get to a magic field where poetry appears as everything that is poetic (and where everything is poetic provided that it is poetry). Another possible track to be taken is the one offered by an "a priori" model which conceives of poerry as a limited scope - the scope of an exclusively verbal art and of a versificaation art. Not too long ago, "free verse" was not poetry but rather "poetic art". Another option must also be discussed (other possible definitions, having a more complex nature must be left for another type of discussion). This option coincides

with a thorough search for an architectonic structure underlying the languages and communicative systems that enter the texture and configuration of visual poetry. A search of this sort should ultimately reveal the reason why the term "poetry" should be applied to this texture and to all the production in visual poetry. First. it must be clear that although the label "visual pcetry" appeared as a term pointing to a specific movement which took place in the 60's/70's, it became applicable to every and any aspect of a visual nature entering a poem (in the sense that poems are conceived of today). Visual poetry also includes poetic forms preceding the institutionalized movement whereby visual poems were produced, such as ca/:.igramic poetry, spatialism and concretism. The great variely of visual aspects involved in this type of production shows that the visual component is the most fundamental element in this contemporary poetics marked by the relations among various
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artistic languages. A discussion of visual poetry would not be complete if one did not point to the fact that the view according to which "visual poetry" and "postal art" overlap implies a habitual attitude whereby misconceptions are usually originated. According to these biased notions, "language" and "medium ", semiotic dialogue and communicative "vehicle" are ultimately one and the same thing. However, not all "visual poetry" is transmitted by mad just like not all postal art is visual poetry. It is undeniable that "postal art" and the cheap "reproducibility" techhniques it implies and applies (such as xerox copies) make the exchange among poets - beyond the editorial market easier. It is also indisputable that these techniques end up interfering with the language of poems, by originating in works having a poor graphic quality. The graphic component, which is a major factor in the construction of a visual poem, is thus treated as a minor feature whereas the "deconstructivist" character as well as the deliberately careless nature of most of the works of this sort are emphasized. An attempt to understand the vast babel which constitutes the scope of visual poetry implies the need for a classifying approach capable of establishing what its main types are. A taxonomy of this kind should make the present exhibit emerge as a more didactic order which should be comprehensible even to the layman. A t the same time, it should unveil he historical relationships whereby the' styles that . ve are now discussing are connected to previous aesthetic trends and whereby new possibilities are outlined. Thus, the typology below does not aim at classifying for a purely academic pleasure or at capturing

the minimal units into which different poems can be analysed. Its true purpose is comparing so as to provide understanding, without ever disregarding the fact that the real power (and value) of the tendencies represented by different poems lies precisely in the personal differences separating one poet from another, once the disrupture of established standards is the principle "par excellence" of creation. Our approach will imply a classifying system based upon the constructional procedures adopted in different poems by different poets. This method brings about a "dissemination ", whereby the work by many creators will be scattered through various parts of this exposition and whereby the internal unity and the personal mark of each artist (which would become evident if different features of his work were presented side by side) will be eliminated. Another justification for this fragrhentation of the global work of a creator is the fact that a classification based on artistic trends (rather than on individuals representing these trends) creates favourable conditions for a discussion originating in new ideas, new horizons and new aesthetic propoosals presented to poetic production. The search for a typology organizing the multiifarious picture that emerges from the production in visual poetry must be guided by the vis",al treattment given to the word, a treatment that' emerges in the various modes of combination between visual and verbal signs and in the different ways of assimilaation of visual aspects by poetry. This is the criterium that will serve as the analytical guiding principle

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which will sustain the typology that will be put forward below. An analysis attempting to capture the domiinant features shared by the works shown in this exhibit results in the emergence of three large cateegories in visual poetry. The first one includes those poems in which the visual component coincides with the graphic aspect of the verbal sign (sentence, phrase, word or letter). The second embodies poetic constructions in which "visuality", aside from being presented by the graphic aspect of letters and words, appears in visual signs which are formally independent from the verbal sign. The third category is representted by those poems in which the "visuality" of images and that of the verbal signs are formally combined so as to create a given and unique "intersign semantics". The visual aspect of the verbal sign This first tendency is the most varied of all trends as well as the one that relates the least to the initial "visual poetry" movement of the 60's/70's (the manifestations of "visuality" in the word appeared long before this movement). In the poems representting this tendency, the verbal sign appears as the central and dominant element to which all visual and phonic aspects relate. One can say that this tendency results from the efforts towards blurring the boundaries between the linguistic sign and its meanings and references. Thus, we find in the current production of "visual poetry" manifestations of the process convenntionally

referred to by the label "calligram" (because of Guillaume Apollinaire's influence). Searching for a solidarity and fusion between verbal forms and theme, "calligrams" display words on the page in such a way as to figuratively represent the object described by the text. Being the oldest mode of "visuality" (manifestations of this constructional procedure have appeared since Ancient Greece), "calligrams" are present in this exhibit in thosse poems that make use of the sentence, phrase or word to "design" an object (e. g. the poems by Sylvia Herrmann and Gregg Zimmer) or the ones which work with letters whose linguistic meaning disappears and gives way to another significance when their function is that of representing a given figure (this process is exemplified by poems such as the ones by N. N. Argaaraz). Another kind of "visuality" of the verbal message is illustrated by poems in which words are scattered all over a space, namely the page. Other visual forms in volve verbal signs placed "loosely" upon the page in such a way that white spaces acquire varied meanings. The space where words are placed is sometimes divided according to the nature of the geometric arrangement made up of phonically similar words. The remotest origins of the creation included in the first case, which we can label "spatialism" (e. g. the poems by Andres Athilano or Francisc'a Peralto), can be found in the classic poem "Un Coup de Des" by StephaneMallarme.This trend is marked even nowadays by an extremely free and subjetive way of arranging words or letters on a space which coincides with the page. In the second case, occupation of space is

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accomplished by a geometric order of words and by the phonic similarity between them. These replace the traditional sentential syntax. Here, we are dealing With the poetic "concretism ", established in the 50's, initially by the "Concrete Poetry Manifest" (whose author was the Swedish-Brazilian artist Oyvind Fahlstrom) and by the book "Constelations" (created by the Swiss-Bolivian artist Eugen Gomringer, and which like Fahlstrom's work was produced in 1'953). The Brazilian fundamental contribution appeared with the National Concrete Art Exhibit (1956157), "Guidelines to Concrete Poetry" (1958) by the Noigandres group, and the poems "A AVE" and "SOLlDA" by Wlademir Dias-Pino, which did not follow or comply with these guidelines or standards in a strict way. Poems like the ones presented by James Johnson or Arrigo Lora-Totino (a poet whose production appeared at the beginning of theconcretism) emphasize the constructional and structural nature of "concrete poetry" in comparison to the informal "abstractivist" language of "spatialism" (a confrontation that will take place even in the most recent trends of "visual poetry", as will be shown later in this article). Another form of "visuality" of verbal messages is the one presented by the poetry by Thalia which will be here called "logogram" (thus acknowledging the importance of the poems by the Brazilian creator Pedro Xis to, also shown in this exhibit). These are poems in which the letter (no longer the word) functions as a metaphor (rather than as a device aiming at figuratively depicting) an idea (and no longer a physical object as in "calligrams"). The "design" of the verbal sign is here a

visual "diagram" of a certain meaning. A fourth kind of manifestation of the lIisual dimension of verbal poems appears in those processes of recuperation of traditional syntax and of verbal discourse via a visual apparatus playing upon words so as to create a "package" involving the text. These poems represent a particularly strong tendency in recent Brazilian poetry and they use colours and forms to reinforce verbal discourse (just like the "neoconcretist" movement of the 50's postulated). Valnei Andrade's and Miekal And's poems exemplify this process. The label "package-poem" denotes the search for a recuperation of a semantic richness which perhaps only the word and linguistic articulation can produce. Poetic force here lies mainly in the verbal dimension, and the visual aspect has mainly the value of a reinforcement to final-art. Opposite to the direction along which the "package-poem" develops, evolves the tendency that will here be called "Ietterism" (that originated from the "Ietterist" movement that took place, in the forties) where the graphic treatment given to the word ends up changing the semantic aspect into a void, The visual force of the letter is here exacerbated and this releases and actualizes all the graphic potential of its design (this process is exemplified by the poems by Clemente Pad/n or Fernando Aguiar, among others). In other instances, "Ietterism" emerges as a number of geometric configurations made up" of letters, involving the same process of semantic "empoverishment" that takes place in the former case, This procedure can be illustrated by works like the ones by Karl Kempton

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or Miroljub Todorovic. In the threshold of the verbal message, we approach the last type of "visuality" of the linguistic construction. Here, the verbal texture is brought out of recognition. Writing appears as "quasi-writing", and as a procedure that could be labelled by Joyce's term "scribbledhobbled". Here, we are faced with a tendency that contrasts with "Ietterism" just like "spatialism'" differs from "concretism ": whereas in "Ietterism" the implosion of verbal writing is geared to a constructive ordering of visual aspects, "scribbledhobbled" is marked by an informal abstracctionism. "Scribbledhobbled" appears at the core of the proposals that emerged at the end of the sixties, being presented as a solution to the crisis affecting concretist writing (here. as it seems, emerrging as a symbol of the structuralist or rationalist "avant-garde" trends). Being configurated as a theoreetical proposal at the initial moments of the Italian "visive poetry", the process that we here call "scribbledhobbled" assimilates the act of creating the poem to the very poem, that is, to the product of this act. Thus, the word "poetry" (from the Greek "poresis" = act of making something) beecomes the central theme in poetic composition. An implication of these notions is that calligraaphy acquires the status of an "index" pointing to the poet and to a "gestualism" that originates in a kind of "performatic" poetry, as well as reflects the indeterminacy and the possibility of error that exists, in latency, in all creative activity. Scribbledhobbled appears in those poems where only calligraphy is present (e. g. in the works by Gilberto

Jose Jorge or Ana Hatherly) or in creative products which involve drawings, photos and images making up an all-encompassing unit where writing emerges as the predominant aspect (e. g. the poems by Karla Sachse or Rea Nikonova), anticipating the "collage-poems" ana lysed below. The cases in which the development of this style is a natural outcome of processes involved in the artist's mothertongue (due to the fact the the very nature of their writing system is calligraphic) are extremely unique. Examples are the operations by means of which Mohammed S. Saggar's works play with the Arabic language and Yutaka Akiya/ Mari Imai's, with the ideogram. A visuality extraneous to the verbal mode When the image is not merely the graphic aspect of the word, visual aspects are represented by photos, drawings and graphic signals combined to verbal signs which present their own and unique graphic configuration. We can distinguish between two modes of articulation in this kind of visual poetry. Both of them are characterized by a formal independence between images and words. The former, which we will call "illustration-poem", is exemplified by a graphic divorce between words and image which results in the presentation of the verbal sign as an illustration of the text or of the text as a a caption referring (and appertaining) to the image. In this category, there is a recuperation of the discursive character of the verbal mode (like in the kind of production that we labelled "package-poem"). However, here it is no longer the graphic exploitation

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of the word that takes place. Rather it is an illustraation of the text that is presented (as we can observe by analysing poems such as the ones by Harry Polkinhom or Pedro Juan Gutierrez). In other innstances, the importance of the image is intensified by technically perfect reproduction and printing processes, like in Sarah Jackson's or Liliana Grinberg's works. Here, we can say that verbal discourse works as a caption poiming to the image, being like 'a title wInch names and widens the implications of a plastic picture. The latter type creates favourable conditions for the emergence of a special style of verbal-visual irony, whereby the text subverts and mocks the image, distorting its usual meanings. This is the case of the poetry by Sebastio Nunes or Antonio Lizarraga. Beyond the scope of the "illustration-poem ", the divorce between image and word can operate accordmq to the principle of "collage". In this case, the relationship between these two aspects is arbitrary and It does not aim at the recuperation of meanings relevant to the poem. On the contrary, this type which we can call "collagepoem ", proposes a "desematicization" of poetry and it can be regarded as a del/vation of "scribbledhobbled" (a category with which it often merges). The Italian "visive-poetry" (as well as related development; in poetic production such as "metagrammatic", "archaeollogical", "phonic" and "performatic" poetry) was (stablished upon the foundations put 'forward by the two types to which we have just referred. The same proposal - that of assigning a major value to the visual-graphic aspect of poetic construction (and a minor function to semantic manipulations) - also

appeared in features of the Brazilian "process-poem" and in the Jugoslavian "signalism ". The principle of "collage", which had been created by Cubism, having the function of separating visual images from references extraneous to their own materiality, appears in Futurist poetry. Whereas at the beginning of this century this aesthetic principle aimed at representing and capturing the informational speed and simultaneity enhanced by the new techniques related to electricity, the current "collage-poem" seems to denote the very crisis of the established concept of art and poetry. By making use of techniques and languages in such a way as to make up a deliberately chaotic configurration (in which sensorial modes of apprehension eliminate the act of "reading" for meaning), the "collage-poem" tangibilizes the postmodern aessthetics. It also emerges as a "sensorialist" division of modernity which invades the panorama of all cultures, being established in the void of all "intellectualist" conceptions. The "collage-poem" involves various languages which are typically used by other tendencies of "visual poetry". They subordinate "articulatory" forms to a "plastic" dominant. This determines a mode of reception that equals the one whereby the addressee decodes messages produced in the area of fine arts. Thus, for instance, elements of "scribbledhobbled" can be found in the "collageepoems" by William Xerra; "Ietterism" marks Stephen Jacob's "collage "; "performance" characterizes poems like the ones by Guy Schraenen; "pop-art" is the basis of works such as the ones produced

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by Filimir; and the ironic style also finds a chance of showing its contour in poems by authors such as Ruben Tant', especially in "on Velzquez". A verbal-visual interplay The last category of "visual poetry" is characcterized by the principle of "montage" and it lies and relies upon the weaving together of a few ('verbal and visual) signs, aiming at a recuperation of semanndc values, that is, the same values which the "collageepoem" tried to eliminate. In an exhibit held in 1985 at the "Centro Cultural Sao Paulo ", we called this procedure "Intersign Poetry", as the poetic function of communication emerges from the interplay of visual and verbal signs, aiming at the generation of a "seman ticized " form. The procedure of "montage" - as defined in its most sophisticated form by the cinematoographer Sergei Eisenstein - involves a formally motivated combination (which contrasts with the free plastic relations which take place within the scope of "collage") of two or more elements. The outcome of this process is the creation of a semantic field which can be apprehended by an attentive and intellectual reading action (this mode of apprehension differs from the one involved in "collage", where all reception always operates on a sensorial and anti-semantic basis). Also, in "montage-poems" other types of "visual poetry" are subsumed by a visually "neater" construction. Thus, "scribbledhobbled" is reated together with the image through a game whereby shadows and

contours are manipulated like in the poems by Michele Perfetti; "Ietterism" operates in such a way as to originate in a number of possible semantic readings in Mirella Bentivoglio's works; the graphic operations (where form overpowers content) which take place im "process-poems" gain importance and significance in Neide Dias de S's poem; modified versions of "ready-made" elements are used in the motivated construction that we find in John Furnival's "montage"; pop-art - which suggests collage, is guided by a "montage" principle in Richard C. 's production; and "montage" is compatible with decodification processes in which the addressee reads for meanings even in works where there is no word (e. g. the poems by Miron Agafitei and Florivaldo Menezes). The typological analysis carried out in this opening article unveils the contour of a number of issues. The first of them refers to the fact that proocedures characterizing each category often intermingle and interact. Thus a classifying study must detect the dominant feature in each poem, that is, the feature which forces various elements to submit to the procedure that prevails. Secondly, if we try to organize a field marked by so many diversified manifestations like "visual poetry" into dual units, we will see that the "montage-poem" (or "intersign poetry") relates to the "collage-poem" just like "Ietterism" relates to "scribbledhobbled", and in the same way as "conncretism" relates to "spatialism". These dichotomies are linked to two guidelines according to which contemporary poetics evolves: the former is marked by an "intellectualizing" classicism of a constructivist nature; the latter, has an informal chaos-generating

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and baroque character, being more geared towards a sensorial mode of apprehension. The third general characteristic of "visual poetry" would appear as an outcome of the fact that both guidelines point to a total integration among matrices of (verbal, visual and "sonorous") language. If on the one hand this "totalizing" action resulted in the assimilation of visual components, on the other it caused poetry to be deprived from its "sonorous" aspect (which had been underlined by poetic discourse). Thus one of the challenges with which visual poets are faced is the re-incorporation of sound into the scope of the poem. In the trend where "montagepoems" appear, this "globalizing" re-incorporation would capture sound as something other than the oral actualization of the word (in the same way as in intersign poetry, image is no longer merely and plainly the "visuality" of the word). Sounds of any kind (whether noise or music) would play the role of assigning new meanings to the constructions made up of words and images. A formal interplay of the verbal, the visual and the sound-related aspects would be created and this would produce a "superconductive montage in which communication would require a full exploitation of the observer's senses, aiming at the decodification of the reading hypotheses relevant to the poem. I dare to elaborate and present a poem that will exemplify these proposals, and for this purpose, I ask the authors of articles published in this catalogue

to allow me to use the right corner at the bottom of the pages of their essays to show my illustrating poem. The reading of this poem ("The Insert") must start from the last pages and end in the initial ones. The pages must be manipulated with the fingertips. Manipulation must be rapid, which will transfigure the pages into elements making up a kind of motion picture. Movement will assign order to the verse: "O inserto bate as asas contra as leis da escrita" ("The insert wings against the laws of writing"). The sound produced by the manipulated pages will appear as a piece of information which, at first, emerges as a mere noise, eventuually being transfigured into the very materiality of the insect moving desperately against the misleading transparency of the glass that acquires the character of a concrete element due to the action of the intersemiotic decodification process. This poem is the tangibilization of a proposal which can characterize a "totalizing montage" of a "superconductive" poetry that can eventually be created. These are SJme instigating questions which seal the final moments of this brief study on the wide horizons presented by and to contemporary poetry. However, we have barely discussed what poetry is ... (Translation: Silvia Simone Anspach)
* the quotations of this text refer to the poems reproduced in this cataloque

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SOME INSTIGATING ISSUES ON VISUAL ELEMENTS IN THE AVANT-GARDE SPANISH AMERICAN POETICS
Amlio Pinheiro Brasil

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1 I would like to relate some analyses concerning the use of several visual elements in Latin American Spanish poetry during the political/aesthetic/cultural shock of the first decades in this century, to the necessity and pertinence, within the so-called "avant-garde" .. of developing construction and reading projects which, although committed to the informational plano initiated in and spread from the western world, present a specific and "differentiated" nature. Here the word "differentiated" also challenges three hypothesis which, even when combined, restrict the scope of its productive performance (aesthetic production: structures in motion generating transsforming actions of reading at each period of time and in each place, on a page, in the world). 1 - An interpretation overstates the influence of imported techniques derived from the conflict between tradition and rupture, brought violently to light in the European settling of the avant-garde movements by the process of intensification and exhaustion of the "Utopian Energies" (Habermas: 1988) in the modern state. This interpretation does not relate such an unstable cultural processes, where a certain inherited technique is strengthened and transformed by the contact with a "residual" and "molecular" material (WILLlANS: 1977: 35542 and 108-112) that threatens the regional dominant culture at the same time that exchanges constructive solutions for the internationally selected material. Gramsci himself (1985: 178) already pointed out that "innovations occur through the interference of several cultures, which happens in different ways ... there may be an interference and a 'molecular' influence within a nation, among several strata, etc; a new dominant class raises alterations on a large scale but the jargons of the many professions, of the specific societies, raises innovations in a molecular way. " 2 - Another point of view which originates in an excessive and almost exclusive way the predomias contra

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nance of fratures regarded as nationalizing and permeated with a Spanish tradition in which a colonizing discursive-verbalistic tone (that considered the practice of visuality in the poem as being secondary, foreign and episodic) deserves a special mention. This view does not even, take into consideration the non-verbal mechanisms of the cultural and poetic "montage" that the European avant-garde themselves drew out from this Continent or that were adopted there by some vagrants poets. Such a trend, followed also by non-Spanish critics, supports the predominance of a kind of centripetal, unitary and monological folklorism, against the mutual universalization in culture and aesthetics. The peripheral manifestation, in which non-centred operativeness, no matter how telluric, cannot be classified in a devoratively manipulable location, are also disregarded here. 3 - The third interpretation - in spite of poinnting the phenomenon of cultural assimilation that marked the aesthetic procedures followed in Spanish America (moving away from the nationalizing and internalizing excesses characterizing the previous views), assigns an original and reconciling spiritual homogeneity to the difference of the American Continent (to the oposition to the Old World), thus reducing the distinguished and multiply determined process to symmetric pairs searching for a final synthesis. Paz (1976: 152) tends to support these notions when he says that "we, Spanish-American, are sentenced to search for origin or, 'what is the same, to image this search. If we are at all similar to one another, our similarities lie in the fact that we feel uneasy in the present. We are all fugitivies from all the eternities, without excluding Confucius circular time".

It is a question of analyzing how some radical poets, even when using the graphic-visual apparatus, go beyond the views above outlined, strengthening the centrifugal dialogue not reducible to unifying and "ontologizing" generalizations: Girondo, Vallejo, Tablada, Huidobro. 2 Since his first book, Veinte Poemas para ser leidos en el Tranra (1922), as the title itself evidences, Oliverio Girondo performs a special kind of fast and simultaneous cosmopolitan devouration, where the cubist exercise operates as an instrument of grotesque-carnivalizing and paradoc-political deformation (any urban scene that the eye redraws, if in motion, is a space of political-semiotic interchange), and where the author's caricature is included in a non illustrative-ornamental way. In the presentation of the book, Jorge Schwartz (1983: 118) already warns that "the principles of the cubist 'montage' designed to create "multi-perspectivism" are subtly used by Oliverio Girondo in the organization of the text. Let's analyse a poem as Croquis en la Arena (1968: 56-58).
CROQUIS EN LA ARENA La maana se pasea en la playa empolvada de sol. Brazos. Piernas amputadas. Cuerpos que se reintegran. Cabezas flotantes de caucho.

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 Al tornearles Ios cuerpos a las baistas, las aoas alargan sus virutas sobre el aserrn de la playa. Todo es oro y azul! La sombra de los toldos. Los ojos de las chicas que se inyectan novelas y horizontes. Mi alegra. de zapatos de goma, que me hace rebotar sobre la arena.

Por ochenta centavos, los fotgrafos venden los cuerpos de las mujeres que se baan. Hay quioscos que explotan la dramaticidad de la rompiente. Sirvientas cluecas. Sifones irascibles, con extracto de mar. Rocas con pechos algosos de marinero y corazones pintados de esgrimista. Bandadas de gaviotas, que fingen el vuelo destrozado de un pedazo blanco de papel. Y ante todo est el mar! El mar! ... ritmo de divagaciones. El mar! can su baba y can su epilepsia. ! El mar! ... hasta gritar !BASTA! como en el circo.

Apart from serving as the sixth stanza, a "truely visual stanza" (Schwartz: 1983: 123) of 'the poem, the modern figure of the then itinerant photographer causes to converge

on himself, in to-and-fro motion, in his debauching design, a carnivalized amalgam of written images engraved by the cubist fragmennting action that alternates short and long series. Sketched on the sand, the written and the drawn wores refer to each other as destructible constructions: the carnivalizing task reaches the very genre that guides these constructions. The photographer, a metaphorical representative of the pessimistic gratuitousness of the urban relationship ("For Iighty cents, the photographers sill the bodies of bathing women") shows us a recent photograph of one the fleshy buttocks that could complete a fragment of the second stanza. Notice also that Girondo combines the presence of the drawing with the cubist writing and graphic-hyperbolical devices. Here, besides the "calligram" - which evokes Apollinaire - (in these calligrams there is a literal translation form verbal to visual), there is a constant superimposition and juxtaposition of two code systems which are read separately (but one is also read through the other), in spite of the fact that the scope of the semantic operations marking the written texture is more extense and intense (in this direction, the "bicolour", "calligram" Espantapajaros (1932) does not mean, in terms of visual renewal, a great advance in the Girondian poetics.) Is is interesting to see how the several procedures, in Girondo, mobilize critically the mundane referent which the poetic text aims at defiling. It is perhaps such a directed intention that still supports the lexical entireness of the words with which the author hyperbolizes the decaying sentimentalism of the big boroughs: "Hay quioscos que explotan la dramaticidad de la rompiente". In En la Masmdula (1954) Girondo will take "su baba" and "su

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epilepsia" to the magma of verbal construction. It seems that in Oliverio Girondo, two aspects reach a critical point: the interplay of contempoorary literary techniques (which nourish the poems to a high degree) and a sort of productive pessimism (Sabato: 1974: 140147) that shatters what he himself calls "prejudice against the sublime" in the Epigraph of the Veinte Poemas: "No prejudice is more ridiculous than the prejudice of the sublime". It is such an interplay pointed out in another epigraphic speech in the book, that grotesquely emphasizes the anti-essentialist and transformingdigestive character of his poetic practices: "Hellish coterie, with the comforting belief that, in our condition of LatinAmericans, we have the biggest stomach in the world, an eclectic extremely liberal stomach able to digest, and to do very well, not only some northern herrings or an eastern couscous, but also a cooked becasina or one of those epic smoked sausages from Castela". (Girondo: 1968: 47). And here there is the polyphonic integration (and we here acknowledge Bakhtin's contribution) of imported tecniques, socialcriticism (those aestheetic - political conjunctions to be restored) and a certain sensitive substratum, conscious or unconsciously recorded, of the Americanism in its "Argentinizing" version (which is connected to the geographic-historic situation of the country since colonization: its linguistic constitution, migratory flow, foreign components, etc.)

Vallejo's rigidity towards the "non acculturated" adoption of the contribution of the western European technoaesthetic apparatus leads him to list the following already used factors that therefore should be surpassed in Latin America (Vallejo: 7/5/1927): 1 - New Ortography. Suppression of punctuation and capital letters. (European proposition since Futurism, 20 years ago or so, until 1920 Dadaism). 2 - New writing of the poem. Ability to write up and down like the Tibetans or circularly or sideways, like the students in Kindergarten, college or anywhere, to write in any direction according to the emotion or the object to be suggested graphically in each case. (European proposition, since San Juan de La Cruz and the benedictines of the fifteenth century, until Apollinaire and Beaudouin). 3 - New subjects - The light of the moon succeeds the radiogram. (European proposition in Marinetti, just like in multi-level synoptism). 4 - New machine to produce images. Substitution of static and comparative alchemy, which was the core of the previous methaphor, for the dynamic and approximative pharmacy of what is called "rapport" in post-war poetry. (An European proposition, since Mallarm, for forty years, until 1924 Surrealism). 5 - New Images Emergence of the unstable and casuistic apparatus of the metaphorical endings, according to laws which are systematicaly opposed to the aesthetic elements which constitute nature. (An European proposal, since the forerunner Lautramont, for fifty years until 1914 Cubism). 6 - New cosmogonic conscience of life. Horiasas

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zon and distance acquire an unusual meaning, appearing as the cause for the priviledged communication and motion conditions that provide industrial and scientific development. (An European proposition since Laforgue's "Star trains" and Hugo's universal brotherhood, until Romain Rolland and Blaise Cendrars). 7 - New political and economic feeling. The democratic and bourgeois spirit yields to the global communist spirit. (An European proposition, since ToIs toi, for fifty years until the surrealistic revoluution of our era). As we can see, it is not a question of Vallejo's denial of the importance and impressions left by such movements, for he recognized (Vallejo: 23/12/1927): "From Mallarm to Guillaume Apollinaire. Such is the line followed by the poetics. Time will make it clearer and clearer, with its audible voice". What he did not admit was that any of these mateerials from modernity might resist to submit to the "selective filter" of a new restorative reassimilation (Vallejo: 7/1926): "The artistic materials offered by modern life will be assimilated and turned into sensitiveness. The wireless telegraph, for example, is designed to arouse new nervous temperatures deep sentimental insights, amplifying experience and intensifying love (rather than to enable us to merely say "wireless telegraph": thus anxiety grows and is enhanced and a breath of life rouses. That is the real' culture of progress: this (rather than the act of uttering "fibry" words)' is its one and only aesthetic meaning)". That was the reason for the Peruvian poet to set

out to an actualization (in his "trilcic" poems), of a judicious application of the methods of cubist-kinetic "montage" " la Gris", where there is the participation of numerical triads, language samples, the so-called "grammar of faults" (Bailon Aguirre: 1979: XXVI/I) and, still, visual-graphic elements. But if in Girondo, the necessity of a relationnship between writing and visuality was related to the criticalpolitical mobility of the city, in Vallejo it works as an evidence of the poetic political proximity between text and body as well as of the way such a moribund, deprived and bony body is the basic and non-transferable feature, affected by time and space impositions. Consider the case of poem XX in Trilce. XX Al ras de batiente nata blindada de piedra ideal. Pues apenas acerco el 1 al 1 para no caer. Ese hombre mostachoso. Sol, herrada su nica rueda, quinta y perfecta, y desde ella para arriba. Bulla de botones de bragueta, libres, bulla que reprende A vertical subordinada. EI desage jurdico. La chirota grata. Mas sufro. Allende sufro. Aquende sufro.
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Y he aqu se me cae la baba, soy una bella persona, cuando el hombre guillermosecundario puja y suda felicidad a chorros, al dar lustre al calzado de su pequea de tres aos. Engllase el barbado y frota un lado. La nia en tanto pnese el ndice en la lengua que empieza a deletrear los enredos de enredos de los enredos, y unta el otro zapato, a escondidas, con un poquito de saliba y tierra, pero con un poquito, no ma .s.
Where, aside from "condensing" all the procedures mentioned in the previous paragraph, the capital letter A in line 9, appearing in two other ones in line 11 ("Allende sufro. Aquende sufro"), outlines the unbent figure of an imposing and "subordinate" adult urinating, with "bulla de botones de bragueta" (line 7). The painful mockery lies - via the pressures originating from the interplay of auditory and graphic-visual elements - on the osseous, physical and gestural series that cross the species physical posture in History. In this trail, Vallejo rearranges and distils the tradition established by Mallarme and lor the "Huidobrian-ultraist" current (as the baroque-quevedian, tradition, the multilanguages originating from Lima-Peru, the de-colonizing laugh, the Inca strata, etc). The "flavour" of the interpretation lies precisely on such a discovery of

a constructive contamination, among authors, by means of a "pluridetermination" that emplasizes the complexity, leading to the participation, in the work, of specifically peripheral structural marks that become involved with the meaningful conjunction. In the three last verses the phonically salivous childish scribbling reveals the operative hesitation of a poet who chokes when speaking, ashamed of the adult, and destroys the lexical syllabication. Here, the human fluids textually ask for their place in the story, in graphemes that suddenly show their graphic scar, their "injury-gram" against the already recorded speech of the discourse. 4 Placed experimentally and energetically between the Spanish modernism and the avant-gardes from the turn of the century, Mexican Jose Juan Tablada is a radical thermomether of this time of inventive transitions which, due to contaminations of "-isms" and travels, made him go through the haicai (introduced by him in the Spanish language), the calligram (at the same time as Apollinaire) and the graphic poem. Octavio Paz (1966: 444), his great admirer, presents him in Poesia en Movimiento in this way: "A Modernist going through his initial stages - from here, maybe originates his passion for the word, the adventure, and for travels: the notion of art as eterrnal dynamism and as eternal change - Jos Juan Tablada supported this current in Revista Moderna (1898-1911)". And Tablada himself clarifies such an important notion of his aesthetics in a letter to Lopes Velarde (1910): "Everything depends on one's concept of art. There are people who believe it

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to be static and definitive; I believe it to be endless movement and continuous evolution, just like the stars and the cells in our own bodies. Universal life can be summarized in only one word: movement. Modern art is in progression, and within this art, isolated works also move around themselves like the planets around the sun". Tablada makes his experiments in the last modernist symbolistic practices and the necessity to rethink the world as a possibility of a visible, "spatialized" and synthesisable physical reconstruction. Roggiano (1980) points out exactly that "modernism had been the culmination of a western poetics centred above all, on the French symbolism, topmost expression of the anthropocentric individualism as an anthopology of the being and its meanings ( .. .) There was, thus, need to restore every spatial value and every object in its visible integrity. That was the task to be accomplished by Cubism, to which Tablada would adhere when returning from the East, where he had worked with the graphic poem. We might be led to think that Tablada's travel to Japan in 1900 was a deliberate decision, a necessity imposed by the emergence of historical awareness and disrupture" (and we have to consider in this mosaic the fact that he was a student of the pre-Spanish and popular art, besides being a close friend of painters like Orozco and Rivera). At the same time, Tablada's best poems cope with the demand for (at least) an Avoidance of the decaying modernist imagery and of the calligramatic fluidity already used in Spanish by Acuna de Figueroa's, an Uruguayan, in the eithteenth century (Argaaraz: 1986: 36), aiming at a spatial-graphic structuralization that mobilizes reading beyond the ornament and the physiognomical. When referring to the poem, La Venus China, Roggiano (1980)

points out the line followed by the Mexican: "The physical presence, its graphic and almost expressionist visuality is what stands out here, despite the inoperative poetics of his decaying language. From this poem to Luna, where the graphic array predominates, there is only one step. And this will take the poem to the modernity of the avant-garde currents - and mainly to the predominant aspect of the avant-gardes: "spatially", a really new time in Tablada's poetry, as we will see below. This time includes the years from 1919 to 1924, which coincide with the development of Huidobro's "creationism" and Borges' "expressionism" (and, in a way, Vallejo's as well)". Li-po seems to be a condensed summary of the constructive tracks followed by Tablada in which ideograms, diagrams, calligrams, "quasi-haicais" and visual-graphic exercises are woven together in an al'l-encompassing and multifarious configuration which exacerbates and intensifies different practices in turns, in a movement that resembles that of a boomerang.

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La luna es araa de plata que tiende su telaraa en el rio que la retrata Y Li-Po el divino que se bebi a la luna una noche en su copa de vino siente el maleficio enigmtico y se aduerme en el vicio del vino luntico Dnde est Li-Po?, que lo llamen manda el Emperador desde su Yamen

advice: ' Imiter les chinois ao couer limpide et fin ... " but let us not forget that he was in New York when Duchamps exposed his 'mobile circles' and Pound spread his notions on the Chinese ideogram (Cathay, 1915) referring to adaptations of Li-po poems accomplished by Ernest Fenollosa. Also, in English, Maiaakovski's 'panel poems' were spread." 5 There is no space here not even for a schematic explanation concerning the rich and varied track followed by Huidobro's work within the scope of the relationship among spatially, visuality and graphic modes of expression. Whereas from 1918 to 1931 the ultra avantgarde Chilean creator prepared a daring "somersault" his production of the work Altazor (and even before that: his also daring Horizon Carr was created in 1917), he opened a wide variety of intersemiotic horizons in the field of the poem, which he readapted according to his own artistic interpretations of the Cubist aesthetics of the time. Also, he supported, in an exacerbated fashion, the creationist assumption (whereby artistic production was viewed as superior to the operations carried out by nature) through manifest and meetings. Huidobro's contribution is announced by Max Jacob in the following inscription from Le Cornet uls (1917): ''To the poet Vicente Huidobro, who created modern poetry without knowing the results of the European efforts and whose place among us was preestablished." Huidobro carried out experiments with Gris, Delaunay (colourful poems ilustrated by

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Roggiano (1981) assigns a specific placeboth to the poem and the book of which it is a constituent: "In Li-po y Otros Poemas Tablada follows Mallarme's

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the latter), projects including ballet and music (with the participation of Stravinsky, Delaunay and the poet himself), poems painted on blouses and an exhibit of Pomes Peints (1922). His typographic exercises, more and more creative, kept him away from Reverdy, as Ren da Costa (1981) shows.

Referring to the poem Paisage, the critic says: "All Reverdy's principles of composition are violated in this poem, where Huidobro gives free reign to his fancy and bends his writing to create a visual landscape. To enhance the total artistic effect, and involve the reader more, the poem was printed sideways, as a two-page centerfold in the already oversized Horizon Carr". It is very interesting for us to notice (consistently with the main preocupations which mark and orient this essay) the fact that the cubist/visual apparatus (which is structured within a poetic lexicon where the "flying-poet" struggles not only with worn-out terms but also with the ones generated by new technologies) never relapses, since the poet rearranges the structural movements of reading and contamination that relate different times and cultures to each other through a simple nominal and enumeration operating by adding up features emerging from a pseudo-modernity. It is referring to such a crucial point of the question that Ydice (7978: 65) emphasizes, quoting Huidobro himself (in an opinion that identifies him with Vallejo's complex profile the profile we have just tried to outline).' "Huidobro includes all the 'esprit nouveau' elements in his poety (signs, airplanes, telephones, telegraphs, dreadnoughts, etc) , but as he says in a criticism of futurism, what matters is the poetic treatment of the theme, and not the theme itself as a statement of a new poetry: "It is not the theme, but the way to produce it, that has to be new. Poets who believe that they are modern' just because they refer to machines (which are in themselves modern) in their creation are completely mistaken. If I write

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EXPRESS

about an airplane following Victor Hugo's aesthetics, I will be as old-fashioned as the conception I imitate, if I write about of love complying with a new aesthetics, I will be born anew". It is such an ability of relating the thematic and the formal subject that specifies Huidobro before, for example, Cendrars and Apollinaire (ytJdice: 1978: 64). It is such a process of innovating in corporation that originates in poems like Huidobro's Express (the fact that this work was dedicated to Gris and Lipchitz is meaningful and revealing), Poemas rticos - a project truely involving a multiplicity of readings, where cubist juxtapositions, "mallarmean" typographic spacing, unique terms, visual-phonic games are woven together. Also, speed and an atmosphere related to travelling (for the time being, by train) that will be intensified in Altazor appear as (formalized) themes:

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Una corona yo me hara De todas las ciudades recorridas Londres Madrid Pars Roma Npoles Zurich Silban en los llanos locomotoras cubiertas de algas AQUI NADIE HE ENCONTRADO

De todos los rios navegados yo me haria un collar EI Amazonas El Tmesis EI Sena El Rin

Cien embarcaciones sabias Que han plegado las alas Y mi cancin de marinero hurfano Diciendo adis a las playas

Aspirar el aroma del Monte Rosa Trenzar las canas errantes del Monte Blanco Y sobre el cenit del Monte Cenis Encender en el sol muriente EI ltimo cigarro Un silbido horada el aire No es un juego de agua Apeninos gibosos ADELANTE marcham hacia el desierto

Las estrellas del oasis Nos darn miel de sus dtiles En la montaa EI viento hace crujir las jarcias Y todos los montes dominados Los volcanes bien cargados Levarn el ancla

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That is why Ydice (1978: 102) says that "we shall not mix up the emergence of this theme, with futurists' mechanicist obsession or with the wonderful things provident by the new world as in Apollinaire's work. In Huidobro's work there is a correlation between scientific, technological creation and poetic creation." And such a correlation takes place through a new way of arranging the materials that constitute the poem in a cubist/metonymic/ fashion. 6 In these comments there would be no space for a poem-by-poem consideration of the mode of operation of visual elements in the poetic work by the four authors studied above. Here we aimed at expressing a position concerning the necessity, as we stated in part 1, of restoring a texture made up of similarities and proximities originating from produtive contamination and, at the same time, made up of distinctions are based on the material construtive specificity and uniqueness of the four poets and the "internationalizing horizons" that they assimilated. An another level of correlations, this type of interplay also happens among the poets themselves an interplay

whose richness lies on its indeterminate, open permutable and multifarious character. Based on what was exposed above, I think we can single out some items that act with varying intensity on each of the chosen poets, which I list below not following a chronological order: 1) the absorption of world-wide information (all the four authors were traveling-poets) takes place simultaneously with the diachronic/synchronic use of "multiply-differentiated" materials originating from the national-primitive culture that: a) coming from the New World, "fed" the European avant-gardes themselves (primitive rhythm, Incan-Aztec architecture and statuary etc); b) rebuild peripheral and embryonic languages via the process of assimilation of foreign elements (laugh, bodily elements, moods, vulgar aspects, several jargons, etc); c) commbine international data with the different levels of ethnolinguistic miscegenation and critical-parodic miscenegation among periods or currents, expounding and tangibilizing them poetically. 2) The assimilation of imported avant-garde material contributes to: a) the elimination of all nationalizing material that may resist carnivalization, of elements which are so biased as to generate unifying and mythicizing readings and to being about the formation of masses whose political behaviour is determined by faith and by the grace which coindices with regional "clichs"; b) The possibility of mobilization of the multiple codes that are masterred via a combination of techniques (for example, the connection of new kinetic inventions to the playfulphonic-visual mobility of the continent).

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 3) There is an active utilization of the Cubist aesthetics according to each poet's strategy. This strategy destroys and rebuilds (consistently with new laws of digital-combinatorial contiguity and operating in the scope of the graphic visual space of the page) a world (the Latin-American) where different codes are continuously superimposed and overlapped. This has already been pointed out by Haroldo de Campos (1976: 87-97) with respect to Oswald de Andrade, by George Ydice (1978: 281-300) referring to Vicente Huidobro, by Jorge Schwartz (1983) about Girondo and by me (Pinheiro: 1986) with respect to Vallejo. In each approach, the variants relevant and inherent to each author are specified. Juan Gris's strict synthetic Cubism sewed, in many cases, as a starting point for such an active reconstitution of a national/international, synchronic/ diachronic, modern/primitive multiple and prolific material, linked to each author's historic-poetic specificities. Such a material should be arranged on the page according to new principles of approxiimation. This criterion prevented the poets in question from falling on the futuristic or surrealist excesses, since they had their attention directed towards selective-productive "montages", condensations and transgressions. 4) All the mobilization of internationalizing features into nationalizing materials, on a thematic and formal, level, takes place against the background of a continent where neither the process of essential unification of diferences, nor "the structuring strenght of the society basis on the principle of "abstract work"

(Habermas: 1985) could be established or completed. That was due to the action of counter-currents and to intrusions of vital and aesthetic forms whose eccentric or peripheral effervescence carnavalized the central forms, which tend to carry out the contamination of differences by originating in and making up an all - in compassing and multi-farious texture or mosaic.

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(Translation: Gladys Plens de Quevedo)

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CONTEMPORARY LATIN AMERICAN ART

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Clemente Padn Uruguay

"Language: ... a . system embodying the words and the forms of speaking adopted by a nation or a people. " "Language: ... a system of signs which imply (or provide with understanding on) something". (Diccionario Manual de la Lengua Espanola) Words name objects not because the latter demand a label but rather due to a need of men (who are users of language and of objects). Based on this need, a gigantic metaphor emerges, which replaces the external objective world and which acts as a mediator, as an essential instrument liaissing between reality and mankind as well as connecting human beings to one another and thus acting as a unique language: the language of nations and peoples. A language is in itself a metaphor (since it exists in the place or space allocated to another thing) and it allows for a transfiguration of represented objects into metaphorical entities to operate within its scope.

Metaphorical operations awake in language a second nature. In speaking, one may say, for instance, "I'm bored" or "I'm as happy as a frog in the tomato plantations" or "Oh" or one may decide not to say anything. The first utterance points to a referent; in the second, the metaphorical process invades other levels of expression (including the poetic one), so that the referent is sometimes obliterated by the system of references of the addresser or by that of the few addressees who are familiar with it; in the interjection, there is a stricter relatedness between expression and referent. This is due to a signifying intentionality, without which no articulated sound can ever acquire a linguistic status; and finally, through silence, the "anti-expression" yields to another language, rather than unveiling and moving towards another linguistic level. Dealing with metaphors through elements which are in themselves metaphorical on the one hand implies deviating and getting away from the

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essential function of language which is that of "referring to. And on the other hand, entails the developpment and enhancement of one of the features that mark and define the human being: Creativity, or, in other words, re-invention of the world, fiction, symbolic recreation (as well as the elimination of existing entities and the harmful alienation whereby ideal worlds which overpower the real ones are construed). Aside from the metaphorical dimension of language, one must consider the ambiguity of its constituent elements. The meaning of words depends on and is modified by the hegemonic communicative system of reference. It also depends on the power to control those channels through which ideas are transmitted. Based on the operation of these channels and on that of the prevailing system, values which reinforce and preserve a dominating socioeconomic model are fully supported so that they emerge as parameters to be followed or as authoritarian forces to be strictly observed and obeyed. Between the referential funciton and the artistic role, the projective dimension of language is established. This dimension implies dynamisms which bring about transformation rather than mechanisms that aim at actually transforming. Between the real situation referred to and the situation that is "referrable" to at a given moment and in a given place, a possibility of realization is established either in a retrospective direction (when the referent points to worn-out forms) or implying a progressive development (when the referent invokes something absolutely new, unique, and unusual). It is in this projective instance of language that ideological claims and actions gain life: sometimes the search for

the meaning of a word takes a dramatic form. The value of the verbal code (or any other language or representative system that allows us to communicate with one another) is positive either when it implies a referential function, or when it plays an artistic role or when it carries out a projective task. It is negative, though, when it distorts facts and ideas or when its functions are obliterated by an emphasis on "how something should be said" or on an excessively strict observance of the rules put forward by the "authority of those who say something" (and of standards of "beauty" influenccing and governing the act of saying), etc... In summary, verbal signs have a negative force when they operate according to prejudices and misconnceptions which hinder their major task - that of conveying truth. Whenever words (as well as other communicative units) smother reality with a meaninggless texture of signs and symbols or with a message whose meaning, rather than being neutral, aims at bringing personal benefits to those who communicate, their role is negative. Contemporary Latin-American art reacts to this biased ideological use of language which in many cases and in many ways, obscures the actual meaning of the artistic activity. A use of this kind fails to bring new information or convey knowledge to Society. Moreover, it ultimately causes language (conceived and defined as a communicative product) to fail to accomplish its essential task. Contemporary Latin American artists did not find the recuperation of the clearly established meaning of signs (which brings to mind the classic poetic creation) sufficient. They challenged the
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semantic order where meanings were seen as entities to be captured beyond the boundaries of language. They reacted to the order where languages .intentionally submit to "ideologic" proposals supportted by authoritarian systems. Latin American creators have faced and'at the same time, enhanced social evolution and technical/ scientific development. They Itave borrowed unique and unusual elements from the artistic tradition. In the light of these elements, solutions to aspects appertaining to and characterizing their social and economic environment have emerged in a clear and overt fashion. Due to the wi9{iom implied in those values presented by the artistic tradition, responses to difficult problems and answers to complex quesstions have been provided. A continuous dialectic flux, flow and movement - irom rea lity to theory/creation and from throught/production to Society has guided contemporary art in Latin America. In 1970, "New Poetry II" (Journal "OVUM 10", number 4, September/70) already stated that "signs replace objects and actions . It would be impossible for one to convey information, if the actions and objects on which one focused had to be materially present during the communicative process. This is a principle which is essential for the successful accomplishment of verbal exchange. However, it has been distorted, abused and changed into an instrument of oppression which obliterates the true and fundamental aim of communication. Representation ceased to served men and it submitted to the dynamism of Society. In the specific case that we

are now discussing, language, became an instrument granting the control over productive resources by few privileged citizens and hindering development due to a strict and excessive compliance with the interests of this minority of privileged people ... Reality is replaced by its linguistic represenntation and as this representation operates on 'conceptual' bases, it guarantees that signs overpower truth and life. If the two constituenrs of the sign - the 'signifier' and the 'signified' - are considered and focused on, it will become obvious that it is the latter that is aimed at by distortion and deviiation. The signifier does not cease to be what it is, namely, an object characterized by a phonological/phonetic and visual nature (these two natures dependding on whether the sign is uttered or graphically represented). It is mainly upon the signifier that new poetic trends operate (although it must be noted that some tendencies focus and play upon the signified). Concerning the ideological manipulation of languages, "the more language reinforces and enhances ignorance with respect to the objective world through a distortion of its essential foundations (which aims at providing benefits to a dominating system), and the more the information it spreads and transmits is false (since it does not focus on truth values, but rather on the authority of a norm governing the way things should be spoken about and the way the individual should relate to his environment), the more the predominance of the system supporting those who use languages for obtaining personal profit will be guaranteed". Since the period of time referred to above,

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the nucleus around which all change and renewal would evolve was already outlined. This nucleus would be located in the structural elements of languages. At that time, artists were no longer satisfied with new ways of representing reality or new ways of combining codes (which marked the activities of the historical avant-garde movements that would make use fo the same means to establish both their literary movements and their works in the a,rea of Fine Arts, through a variable modification of codes). Contemporary waves deal with the same means as the ones manipulated by the traditional avanttgarde movements. However these means ale now used for the purpose of a "self-informative" practice, which evidences the false character of the idealizing force of languages (the omnipotence of the word) and the consequent "fetichicization" of speech (connce, 'lee! as another language) by the mass media (which hide the material nature of signs and which desguise its nature as a communicative product created by men, rather than originated in "divine inspiration" or in the creative power of a genius). These means had already been focused on by art in the Past (even though on an underlying level and even though implying a support to the "semanticity" of languages). Innumerable creators and activities can be regarded as sources influencing and giving birth to these tendencies. Examples are Mallarme, who changed space into an expressive element, and the rebirth of the ideogram as a poetic form (via Apollinaire, Pound, Huidobro, etc.), qiming at a disrupture of the "analytical successivity" which marks Western languages. Other examples can be found in Fine Arts: here, Cezanne appears as a crucial figure, due to his valuation of levels and dimensions

(which would lead to the Cubist movement). Kandinsky also looms as an important figure - one who, by liberating forms, created favourable conditions for the development of abstract painting. Concrete Poetry More recently, Max Bill - an abstract painter who continued and developed the tradition establishhed by the Dutch "neo-plasticists", mainly Mondrian, and the Ulm School (approximately 1946) in Switzerrland - assigned the expressive units of fine arts (line, geometric shape, colour, space, etc.) the status of major structures. These recent developments together "with similar activities carried out by other arts, gave way to the birth of the "concretist movement". Since 1951, with Max Bill's success in the 1st Biennial in Sao Paulo, Brazil, these tendencies started to be spread in our continent. As early as in 1953, the first works by concrete poets appeared. After the 1st Concrete Art National Exhibit (held in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro) these would give birth to one of the most influential artistic trends of our time. At that time, three main currents appeared: The most famous of them was initiated by the group "Noigandres" in Sao Paulo. Members of this group were Augusto and Haroldo de Campos, Decio Pignatari and Ronaldo Azeredo. These poets regarded the word as "an object in itself". According to them, signs are to be viewed in themselves, in spite of their relation to a context. What has to be considered by an analysis of verbal symbols is the structure

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which they make up, the implosive potential of the entanglement form /meaning, the way in which extent and time give way to duration in space. The -"successive instants" implied in the sign are to be preserved (the logical and discursive scheme according to which Western languages function is maintained only due to the usage of the structural-syntactic system) in such a way as to create a specific linguistic scope in the concrete poem. In. this scope, verbal and non-verbal expression are integrated and intermingled. The guidelines of the movement are put forward by the "Guidelines to Concrete Poetry" (Journal Noigandres, number I V, 1958 - re-edited in "Theory of Concrete Poetry" in 1975). The trend which we are now discussing, also known as one marked by an absolute structural strictness and rigour, originated in the poetic tendency developed by the poet Mario Chamie (from Sao Paulo, Brazil) in his book "Lavra Lavra" (1962) and it implies a return to the linear verse by emphasizing proximity and similarity between words. In the mid-sixties, semiotic poetry was born out of Wlademir Dias-Pino 's efforts, followed by Decio Pignatari's and Luiz Angelo Pinto's. These were the first attempts to give birth to a wordless poetics, which established parameters of conceptual similarity between plastic and verbal elements. Such type of words liberated the poem from the tyranny of the verbal code. Another tendency which evolved along the lines set forth by the prolific matrix launched by the initial stages of the literary concretist wave was founded by Ferreira Gullar. This originated in the "neoconcretist" movement. The foundations of this movement are pre-

sented in the text "Theory of the Non-Object", (published by the "Suplemento do Jornal do Brasil", Rio de Janeiro, 1960). This article defines the "non-object" as a "special type of object into which a synthesis of sensorial and mental experiences are expected to merge". However, this synthesis can only take place in actuality provided that the "spectator" is involved by and participates in the artistic process: without its addressee, the work of art exists only as pure potentiality and consequently it calls for the human gesture which may actualize it". One of the major features of the movement is the request of the addressee's (conceived as co-generators and creators of the artistic object) material participation. By treating time (which, in its flow, produces the diversity of meanings of the "non-object") as a priority, this movement opens new spaces for action-based and actioneentred artistic forms: happening (eg. "Poema Enterrado" ["Buried Poem"j ), performance, "ambientations" etc. (long before the current production developed along these lines was effectively and "officially" established). Major figures representing this movement (which also powerfully influenced the activities of the group "New Generation" in Brazil and Clemente Padn'L Clark and Lgia Pape. Finally, the "spatial" or "mathematical" tendency which would later (around 1967) give birth to the "Process/Poem", that resulted from a critical reading of"A Ave" ("The Bird") and "Salida" ("Solid") by Wlademir Dias-Pino (1956) must be referred to. The "Process/ Poem" changes the monolithic structure of the poem into a dynamic system,

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by making use of the addresse's creative participaation and by emphasizing its "consummable character" rather than its aesthetic information ("Consummerist Logic"). This trend actualizes an isomorphism between space and time, conceiving these two dimensions as a continuum that generates new information which is extraneous to the proposed artistic project and which corresponds to the versions arising from the spectators' reactions. Structure is codified by process, and both open new communicative tracks: The interchangeable code faces and challenges the rigid character of the unalterable structure.The elements which constitute the process/poem influence each other and they make up a monolithic structural unit. New forms of language are questioned and the possibilities offered by non-verbal signs are searched for: a greater "awareness of new languages, which are open to dynamic creation and manipulation" (Neide and Alvaro de Sa) emerges and is enhanced. A neat separation between Poetry, (an issue related to the verbal code, and having an abstract nature) and poem an object, a visual or tactile product (connected to languages and presenting a material character), is suggested. A "Iiberation" of the poem is proposed' "the process-poem is an anti-literary form in the same way as true mechanics aims at frictionless movement or electricity searches for a perfect insulating material" (Wlademir Dias-Pino). This movement in which hundreds of Brazilian artists took part, deliberately sealed its activities in 1972, through the manifest "Parada-OpoTatica" which involved a deep self-critic posture based

on which possibilities for new developments were open. It would be unfair not to mention in this section the works by Fugen Gomringer, a SwisssBolivian artist who, since 1953, had been conductting activities analogical to those accomplished by the group Noigandres. The works which he publishhed in Switzerland "Constelations" and the maniifest "From Verse to Constelation" (1955) (Both Gomringer end Drfcia Pignatari decided on the name to be assigned to the movement) deserve a special (l'/ention. We also must refer to the poetic practires developed by Ernesto Cristiani who publishhed his work "Structures" (a work that was being generated since 1954) in 1960. Cristiani's Publication contained a series of concrete poems marked by an overt metaphysical-symbolic character. The activities conducted by Mathf'as Goeritz - a German artist established in Mexico who, aside from publishing various works, organized the first concrete poetry exhibit outside Brazil (the event was held in Mexico in 1966) mllst finally he referred to. Visual Poetry There has always been a tendency to consider visual poetry as a formal consequence of concretism. However, we think that the origins of the former trend can be found in movements that were establishhed earlier than the concretist one. If one disregards anCient forms as the Greek ideograms or the mediaeval acrostics, one can say that visual poetry originates in the new treatment of meaningful elements of language initiated mainly by Mallarm and the historical avant-garde waves.

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With this new treatment, words and the space in which they are established acquire the value of objects marked by a potential of self-expression rather than merely that of meaningful units of a given language. Released from their semantic burden, signs start to be organized according to new principles and so as to make up surprising and unusual arrangements. Thus, since the work "Words in Freedom" by Marinetti and the creation by Kurt Schwitters, Man Ray, Raoul Haussmann, Hugo Ball among other artists, there was an evolution towards a gestural (and radical) graphism developed in France at the end of World War II by "Ietterist" artists such as Isidore Isou, Lemaitre, Bernard Heidsick, etc. Their creation would give way (in the mid-50's)to a trend within visual poetry which makes use of letters as a plastic-expressive element and to phonological poetry (which operates upon significants treated as sounds). Both the currents that originate in letterrcentred production and those which are founded upon concretist practices intermingle and end up generating a great variety of forms, ranging from "Spatialism" (developed by the French poet Pierre Garnier) to the multidimensional poem; or from semantic to technological, "visive" (or visual) poetry, etc. The emphasis placed by these diversified forms upon verbal signification varies widely. Some of these forms add images to their production, others do not; some determine a predominance of signifyinggplastic configurations in space, others deny such pre-

dominance, etc. It is valid, thus, to state that there are as many tendencies as there are visual poets. In Latin America, these artistic trends and developments appeared in the mid-60's and were spread mainly through the circuit of experimental journals operating at that time, especially "Diagonal Cera" and "Hexagono 71" in Argentina, "La Pata de Palo" in Venezuela, "Ediciones Mimbre" in Chile and "Los Huevos del Plata" and "OVUM 10" in Uruguay. (Translation: Silvia Simone Anspach)

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IN THE EIGHTIES, POSTAL - ART AND VISUAL POETRY

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Cesar Espinosa/ Leticia Ocharn Mexico

In the mid-eighties, two trends keep to a latent or embrionic state in Mexico (in spite of the fact that they have deep historical foundations and that their development went through all the "classic avantgarde movements"): postal-art and visual poetry. These currents have developed away from the standards, limits and scope within which the production "recognized" by the circuit "art-critics/ art galleries/ institutions" are safely established. Concerning postal-art, the following definition - which is but one among many others - must be considered: "Postal art is the creation which does away with the mitifying 'aura' (which assigns a privileged status to the original form) by reproducing models on a large scale, by separating art from criticism, by eliminating contradictions, by 'democratizing' creation, by emerging as a form of free circulation ur transit connecting various areas in the world (and consequently, by extirpating any regional or provincial roots), by reconciling

codes, symbols and 'graphisms', by reducing the immense variety of interpretations of the 'Kitsch' to a single reading, by changing the erudite society into a focus of humorous views, by saturating artistic forms with visual interference, by creating the necessary condiitions for the emergence of the paradiscursive mockkery of the 'para-lamas' of the event."(1) This practice was historically announced and outlined in 1972, through the postal-wall by Felipe Ehrenberg presented in the "Salon Independiente". In 1977-78 the first postal art actual exhibits were organized (by the groups CRAAG and Marco; the latter supported the creation and emergence of the groups Fotostato and Algo Pasa, neither of which lasted long) 1981 witnessed the looming of the movement Colectivo-3 which was created by members of a previous project: EI Colectivo. Artists from various groups got together so as to create the symmbiotic movement Solidarte (International Solidarity for the Postal-Art) which organized the event "Desainserto

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parecidos politicos de nuestra America" ("People who mysteriously disappeared for political reasons in the American continent"). This exhibit obtained an honourable citation in the I Biennial in Havana, Cuba, in 1984. EI Colectivo-3 developed the project "Revolucion" - a collectively produced poem in whose creation 350 artists from 50 countries took part and organized the postal-art marathon "1984 in 1984: what future do we aim at?". They sealed their activities in 1985 by participating in the "Salon de Espacios Alternativos del INBA" ("The INBA Alternative Space Salon"), with the exhibit "POSTTA RTE: Registros", which was a historical retrosspect of their postal-art projects and activities. In 1985, a new creative team appeared: the group Nucleo Post-Arte. This group summoned artists involved the postal art movement to take part in the first Biennial International Exhibit of Visual and Experimental Poetry in Mexico. The second version of this event is taking place at present, which points to the precarious and scarce background and the insufficient activity in artistic fields of this kind in Mexico. More than 400 creators from 40 countries - around twenty of which are Mexican - participated in these events. Away from the main scene and acting in the background, both postal-art and visual poetry face and resist the open hostility or little encouragement and praise offered by cultural authorities, critics and professional artists and poets. Those vvho devote them special interest are mainly graphic designers as well as students, and instructors and planners involved in various subjects related to communication, especially young creators,

students and scholars. Consistently with what usually happens in Latin America, their production aims at political and social criticism. It blends the condition of "immediacy" and the "testimonial-like" dimension of Postal-art with a search for rigour and renewal in the creative production. As a conclusion, we can state that, to a large extent, postal-art and visual poetry are two sides of the same phenomenon. Postal-art is mostly defined as a "practice" in "artistic communication ". Although this practice is connected with the immediate situuations affecting and including addresser and addressee, it shares the iconic image (that overflows the bounddaries established by languages) as well as techniques such as "montage", "counter-information" and "expropriation" with mass communication messages. It sometimes makes use of the "recycling" and "re-elaboration" properties and techniques which characterize various visual-poetry products, and which mark the process/poem and the "intersign poem". Aside from that, it may involve a refus,!1 to reduce art to commerce and it may also involve the tendency to propose a (nearly) free and nonnprofit oriented distribution of products. Both trends have had a striking international recognition since the 60's and have evolved along the lines which guide many of the post-modern practices, being related to some of these practices (happening and performance, "ambientations", conceptualism, minimalism, poor art, bodily and geographic prootruction, computer-based creation, video-art and holography). However, postal-art and visual poetry also claim that their foundations were set forth
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by the "classic avant-garde" movements. They state that it was the classic avant-garde background that allowed them to overcome their contradictions as well as to recuperate their programmes of subverrsion and utopia in such a way that they could be characterized and defined as a "critical post-modern wave" or a "resistance post-modern movement".(2) In this context, it is relevant to focus on concepts such as production/reproduction 'rather than on the notion of "a-historical repetition ". It is also important to refer to an integration/interrrelation between different artistic forms - making it clear that integration here implies the reverse of an eclectic "reification" based on a dominating and authoritarian structure, system or order. Besides, the notions of intertextuality, "difference ", "deterritorialization" and "marges ", rather than the idea of a disjunction or ev(m of a conservative anti-modernism, must be regarded as central concepts in the scope of the two trends which were focused on in this article. Finally, one cannot seriously dispute that Menipoeia and "carnavalized poetics", dialogism and history are major tracks followed by verbal/ visual writing, challenging the prohibition and the "abstraction" imposed by official law and by authorritarian monological discourses. Mexico- Tenochtitln, September/87.
(1) Marcia Almeida, "DidEYEtica: una post-lectura de la poesia visual" in Signos Corrosivos, Ediciones Literarias de Factor, Mexico, 1987, p. 81. (2) Hal Foster, "Introduccion al posmodern'ismo" in La posmodernidad, from "Mexico: Posmodernismo sin Vanguardia?", in Ed. Kairos, S.A., Barcelona, Spain, 1985, pp. 7 - on.

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(Translation: Silvia Simone Anspach)

"Memoria Documental II Bienal de Poesia Visual y Alternativa in Mexico", 1987.

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VISUAL POETRY - A WRITING TEXTURE THAT CAN BE VISUALIZED

Giuliano Falco Italy

Writing and its instruments and techniques, have always been central elements in the history of mankind. Apart from that, as Marshall Mcluhan emphasized, writing was the feature that defined the "Gutemberg Galaxy", and it was responsible for those characteristics that outlined the unique profile of the Western world cup up to the XIX and'XX cennturies - the period when the electric and electronic "rivals" of the word appeared. Here, like in Postal-Art, the first efforts towards a creative use of the verbal medium were the Hisstorical A vant-garde activities. These displayed a precoocious awareness of the fact that traditional, typographic writing, had reached its ultimate limit and that a renewal of the verbal medium should be implemented. Thus emerged the Futurist "Tavole Paroliibere" where the nature of letters was determined by their material typographic form. Letters' were 'indeependent from the whole, were presented in a series of curved lines or shaped like stars, etc, , . While Marinetti became famous in this field, Balla revalued "manual writing" and played upon

the ambiguity between the graphic aspect of words and their sound. In the meantime, the Dadaists manipulated the "materiality" of the verbal element both in its graphic and its phonological/phonetic aspect. More recently, in the 60's, some artists from Florence proposed the creation of a "visual poetry", that is, a type of poetry marked by an emphasis on the material aspect of writing, and characterized by the claim that the written text should be a typographic construction as well as a configuration in which words and image interacted and intermingled. This tendency was supported by artists such as Lamberto Pignotti, Eugenio Miccini, Luciano Ori and Lucia Marcucci. Other creators, such as Emilio Isgr and Michele Perfetti later joined this group. One of the greatest 'merits of visual poetry was that of interrupting a long period of numbness during which the word was "tortured" by mental meanings (as there was an attitude of generalized indifference with respect to the aspects referring to the image
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of verbal signs). Another great contribution was their effort towards putting an end to the notion according to which there should inevitably be a correspondence between words and images and to the idea that both should be drawn from a vast market offering "seriallyproduced" objects. However, in the 60's, visual-poetic creators extended their fields of action, giving birth to a condition of inter-disciplinarity and inter- "artisticity". This condition is a constant in contemporary aesthetic creation. This always tends to apply its creative energies in a multiplicity of directions: either flowing from the page to the canvas or from the performing space to video (conceived as a recording system). Thus, visual poetry becomes the space "par excellence" of multimedia writing processes, and.it emerges as a space of writing and communication. Its activities are marked by an attitude of refusal to the conception of the artistic product as a ready-made entity, immediately available to the market. (Translation: Silvia Simone Anspach)

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VISUAL POETRY IN YUGOSLAVIA

Miroljub Todorovic Iugoslavia

Visual poetry in our country appeared and developed within the Signalist avant-garde creative movement which originated in our country and in a way, became specific for Yugoslav culture. The beginnings of Signalism are connected with the year 1959, and the attempts to bring new tones adapted to the electronic and technological civilization into Yugoslav poetry in which the principles of Neoromanticism and late Symbolism ruled until then. These beginnings are connected with the language and efforts to revolutionize poetry with fresh linguistic amalgams from exact sciences: phyysics, biology, chemistry, astrophysics and mathemaatics. Hence the first name of the movement is Scientism. A year later the Scientist poetry steps out of the framework of language and gives first fruits inspired by Apollinaire's calligrams. In the following years (1962 and 1963) this poetry insists more and more on the exact. Science is defined as poetic means and

the artificiality and absurdity of separation between poetry and sciences is pointed out. Einstein's theory of relativity is proclaimed as the greatest poem of the modern age written in glorification of Man, and the fundamental mathematical formula of this theory, E =mc2, is indicated as the supreme metaphor. This primary course of Signalism (under the name of Scientism) flows lonely, almost unnoticed in Yugoslav literature, and in an ocean of renewed Neosymbolism and Traditionalism of that period. The years 1968 and 1969 are crucial for Signalism. "The Manifesto of Poetic Science" which summarizes the experiences of the previous period, is published in 1968. In the same year "The Manifesto of Signalism" (Regulae Poesis) is written and in the course of the following year it is published. It supplies basis for the formation of a warlike movement with the aim to spread over and revolutionize all the branches of art and open new processes in culture by radical experiments in a permanent creative revolution especially influenced by the new technoo ins

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logical and visual civilization. Signalism widens its basis which up to then relied only on a few already mentioned sciences, and now includes: Kibernetics, theory of information, phenomenology, theory of dance and others. While in the first phase the tendency to bring certain parts of scientific language into poetry was evident, the second phase is characterized by the discovery of new, undreamed-of possibilities brought about by breaking down stereotypes of the spoken and current poetic language with certain mathematical models from statistics, theory of dance, combinaatorics and kibernetic methods (machines). Language becomes, in the true sense of the word, a material used sometimes by the poet in his programmed dancer's ecstasy in order to produce his works. A sudden development of visual poetry is also typical for this period, the poetry which so far existed only rudimentarily within the movement. Yugoslav avant-garde movement, Signalism, is a complex creative movement. In the third "Manifesto of Signalism (1970) and later texts, detailed classification of new poetic forms is undertaken. In the first place, it is pointed out that poetry repreesents a group of diverse experimental poetries and methods. These are classified into 2 main groups. In the first are those which explore exclusively in the domain of language. In the second group are poetries and methods which exclude some elements of language operating with signs, or,

besides verbal, include visual and vocal elements: This part is titled semeiological poetry on the account of Its radical stepping out of limits treated up till then by current literature, its leaving the linguistic space and its penetration into, from the literary point of view almost unexplored area: the gesture, the sound and semeiology. The types of semeiological poetry are: the visual, the sound and kinetic, the computor (part which operates with letter-sign structures) and the gestural poetry. Yugoslav poets work specially on visual poetry. According to them the main aim of this poetry is the overcoming of the verbal poetic expression. Their main aspiration is the gradual deverbalization and desemantication of the poem. The letter, space and their interactive processes are the basic operative units of the newtextual structures. In gestural poetry primary accent is placed on the gesture and action. The language here is a unity of verbal, vocal and visual elements in a process.

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didEYEtics A POST-READING OF VISUAL POETRY

Marcio Almeida Brazil

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didEYEtics is a semiotic reading. Aims: to make possible the visual contact between audience and objetc by means of reference models, applying semiotic experience to poetic production; to find a principle of visual contact, a correlation between sign/significant/ significance which way forward deterrmination and organization of the reading of the new and of a new visual behaviors. didEYEtics puts together not only the reading of the cultural, aesthetic, poetic new, but also ecoloogic and political visuality, avoiding inflexible breachs or opportunistic adherence, radicalism or reductioonism or eruditeness of pre-burgeois origin, begetters of contradictions, constant replacements, "schools", ismsto-be. didEYEtics is a "jump (of the eye) of humaanity from the kingdom of need to the kingdom of freedom." (Marx). Is projects, not the image of the object as a "given being", mere formal representation, or single version, but the expression of the real by means of visuality,

pluralization of art in their instance of synthesis. didEYE tics is the critic-look, perception of the human collective, "conscience content" (Kant), eye statute, production level. didEYEtics consists of "mutation" and "transference" of common experiences with image under a poetical design, of universal tendency because of its engagement to the new wherever it may turn out creative. didEYEtics is a synthesis of isms, post-all and communicative language intentionally visual and poetic. Its character is uniVERsal, keeping national reference as a semiotic priority for creation, re-view-sion and democratization of the message for the eye. didEYEtics is unification of the act of seeing. didEYEtics is not going to become (more) formalized in theories, patterns, "data", irreversiible principles, since every science is dialetic without didactic blinders. Nevertheless, it will always take into consideration "pre" and "post"-modern visual experience in every p-art, period or ideology.
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 didEYEtic information is, then, optional from "eye-to-eye". In didEYEtic reading, vanguard is that which makes sense forever. That which sets, an example. That which is plural in time and space. This is the didEYEtic "totalling project": geometry and laser, cave inscriptions and semiotic fictional realism, concreteness and "$cripteme", figurativeness and computer, design and ideogram, graphic gestures on the blank sheet. didEYEtic purpose is to release the poem into traffic, itinerant, spectacular and mallarmagic, out of the drawer (not unpublished) out of the bookselling market. The didEYEtic visual poem is the poem in search of its "watcher" - its gartaker-spectator-reader. (Translation: Myryam vila)

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POETRY: OR INTERPLAY OF SIGNS

Fernando Aguiar Portugal

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The age in which we live is an era of signs - an era when poetry utterly abandoned discursive elements and moved towards the domain of forms, the province of audio-visual configurations and the dimension of tactile structures. Developments of a different nature coulq never be expected, since all our living and experiencing structure is founded upon clues, signs, symbols and codes. It is in a semiotic forest that we exist and communicate ideas to other beings. In this context, the word - conceived as the one and only expressive device of poetry - became a limited universe by reference to and in comparison with all the informative and cybernetic processes which are now at hand. Apart from that, images have a greater communicative force due to their intensity, to their implicit or explicit movement, to their texture and colour as well as to the power af their forms or the subtle vibration to which they expose our sight. Moreover, the mode of interpretaation and recognition of visual messages is characterized by an absolute immediacy

of apprehension: images make up a special type of language which is apprehended in a simultaneous and global fashion, which does away with sequential and linear modes of reception and reading. However, the visual system is but one among several kinds of signs conquered by poetry. The greater the number of codes with which a poem deals, the more effective its capacity of transmitting and assimilating ideas. It is due to the increasing interaction among various types of signs that the importance of Semiology, in contrast to that of Linguistics, has been enhanced in the modern act of writing. By making use of a large variety af signs, poetry tries to stimulate the reader's capacity of thinking and his ability to capture relations he tween facts and ideas. In other words, poetry brings about a fuller engagement on the addressee's part, by means of an appeal to and a development of his/her percepptive and critical sense. As a result of these circumnstances, people are required to master different

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systems of signs and to develop new semiotic skills. These skills are gradually imposing themselves and becoming fundamental both for an individual and a' social equilibrium. The larger the number of codes the addressee can handle (and mainly, the more effective his capacity of relating different codes to one another), the greater his aptitude and fitness to understand and respond to the reality that surrounds him. It is due to. the fact that all situations of our daily life have become more and more codified that poetry will necessarily dominate the language of signs. The poet must constantly realize and amplify the potential of all areas of language and, in order to do so, he not only must master the expressive multiplicity of signs that are available to him but also transform them into new signs and languages. That is to say that he must be both the scientist and the designer of the word. The term "scientist" must be here understood as a label referring to "the agent that carries out the exploitation of new forms of language ", and the word "designer" must be interpreted in the sense of "the subject who aesthetically magnifies the force of this created language ". Herbert W. Franke regards art as an entity that "is revealed as being a phenomenon whose domain coincides with the scope of information". This view implies that the (inter}action of the poet as an inventive/ intervening and (informative mediiator takes place in the territory where the creation (of new languages, of an aesthetics to be inferred and of the medium chosen as the mode of transmission of the poem) is accomplished.
(Translation: Silvia Simone Anspach)

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THE VERBAL SlDE OF THE IMAGE (or Metagrammatic poetry)

Srgio Cena Italy

Since Mallarm wrote his "Un Coup de Ds" - which can be defined as a source and anticipation of Visual Poetry - it could be taken for granted that a creative enterprise of this kind would have been fully accomplished and terminated by the time when it moved beyond the scope of writing and by the moment when new communicative tracks were open. This would naturally imply a crisis whereby the very value of words should be questioned and redefined. In fact, metagram literally meant "beyond the word". However, if a thorough understanding of the implications that underly this term in the poetic field is aimed at, one must redefine the concept of Poetry in such a way as not at neglect the general context or the form marking Visual Poetry. Nevertheless, it should be clear that redefining Poetry does not entail viewing oifferent and new elements as a "form beyond form" which aspires at emerging as a phenomenon in itself. The starting point of Metagrammatic poetry is an act of "zero-ing", that is, an act which takes place and

operates as if it were possible to "start from scratch", and consequently, to do away with all previous experience. This act does not have a programmatic nature. Neither does the way different artists representing this tendency at times decide to get together without even knowing anything about the work of their peers. It naturally follows that Metagrammatic poetry hardly submits to classification and that any attempt to reach an unbiased definition would be excessively ambitious and risky. Nevertheless, if one aim at capturing those fundamental aspects which assign the status of a collective phenomenon to a given event, one can state that every specific work (regarded as a fragment of a general context), can be treated as a magnified Apax Legomenon, which does not submit to the obsessive presence of a rule. In other words, the work of art must be "read" as a tex t (created by a writing agent) in which the communicative task is ascribed to an unconventional semiotic "corpus".

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It is neither alphabetic nor ideographic nor does it act as a parody of these two modes (a role that unfortunately most of the production in the area of visual poetry ended up playing). In metagrammatic works, all tasks are to be performed by the Sign. It is relevant to observe here that an analogical remark can be made concernning phonological implications but this would call for a special and unique discussion. In the scope of this essay, it will be sufficient to point to the fact that the virtual metagrammatic experience in Phonological poetry preceded Visual poetry. When the addressee approaches a Metagrammatic (whether visual or phonological) work, he can be easily misled and may feel that he is being faced with a pictoric or musical experience because of the nature of the materials and the propaedeutics implied in this type of composition. However, this is only true in a technical sense, since the observation of a work of this kind can never do without a reading that is strictly linked to the poetic context. If we refuse to be misled by what is superfiicially presented to us, it will become apparent that a manipulation of signs has but a relative importance in the scope of artistic products of this sort, and it will be obvious that what counts is mainly their associations and, in some cases, their inter-relations that link one work to another.

The relationship between sign and space is restricted to a limited territory: what is searched for is not an extent in space but rather depth; not anymore a mere reflection of a theme - extraneous to the scope of the artistic product - but rather a work of art that emerges as a theme and an object in itself and which appears as a material evidence of the fact that the poetic being is marked by a condition of newness. Metagrammatic poets abandon the alchemical secret codes. Their most fundamental activities are geared towards the attempt to recuparate the very origin of life through the invention of a new language and maybe through a mythology that parallels the one on which our life is based. (Translation: Silvia Simone Anspach)

Philadelpho Menezes O Inserto

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SOBRE OS AUTORES DOS TEXTOS

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AMLIO PINHEIRO - nasceu em Santos (Brasil) em 1944. Formado em Direito pela UFRJ, doutourou-se em "Comunicao e Semitica" pela PUC/SP, onde leciona os cursos de "Sociologia da Comunicao" e "Semitica da Literatura", sendo tambm professor do ps-graduao da UNIMEP/SP. Tem dirigido seus estudos para a rea de relaes entre potica, poltica e histria no mbito da Amrica Latina, tendo publicado "A textura Obra/ Realidade" (Cortez/ Unimep, SP, 1983), "Csar Vallejo: O Abalo Corpogrfico" (Arte Pau-Brasil, SP, 1986), "Tempo Solto" (poemas - edio do autor, RJ, 1972) e "Csar Vallejo a dedo" (traduo, Arte Pau-Brasil, SP, 1988) CSAR ESPINOSA - nascido na Cidade do Mxico, em 1939, e poeta, crtico e designer, autor de "Ideologa y Comunicacin Poltica" (1981), Foi membro fundador da Frente Mexicano de Trabajadores de la Cultura e dos grupos "El Colectivo", "Colectivo-3" e "Solidarte". Membro da Unio Mexicana de Artistas Correo, e coordenador do "Ncleo Post-Arte", responsvel pela organizao da Bienal Internacional de Poesia Visual y Alternativa do Mxico (1985-1987) e pela publicao dos 5 catlogos referentes a essas exposies. Compilou e organizou a antologia "Signos Corrosivos" (Ediciones Literrias de Factor, Mxico, 1987), textos sobre poesia visual, con-

creta, experimental e alternativa. CLEMENTE PADN - nascido em 1939 em Lascano, Uruguai. Poeta e terico, dirigiu entre 1966 e 1974 as revistas "Los Huevos de Plata" e "Ovum 10". Membro fundador da Associacao Latinoamericana e do Caribe de Arte-Postal, tem participado de mais de 500 mostras em toda a Europa e America Latina, incluindo a I Bienal de Havana, Cuba (1984), a XVI Bienal Internacional de Sao Paulo e a Bienal Internacional de Poes(a Visual y Alternativa do Mexico. Autor de "Los Horizontes Abiertos" (poesia - Ed. Los Huevos de Plata, 1968), "Poemas Visuales" (poesia - Ed. Ovum, 1969), "Signografias y Textos" (ed. Ovum, 1971) e "Action Works", (ed. do autor, 1981), entre outros. FERNANDO AGUIAR - nasceu em Lisboa, Portugal, em 1956. Formado em Design de Comunicao pela Escola Superior de Belas-Artes de Lisboa, participou de mais de 70 exposies individuais e coletivas na Europa, EUA e Amrica Latina. Coordenou a exposio "Poemografias", que reuniu os mais destacados poetas visuais de Portugal. Organizou o ciclo "Poesia Viva", no Museu Nacional de Arte Moderna, e o "1 Festival Internacional de Poesia Viva", em Figueira da Foz, Portugal. Autor de "Poemas + ou - Hist()ricos" (ed. do autor, 1974) e "O Dedo"

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(Ed. do autor, 1981) entre outros, atuando tambm na rea de poesia-performtica. GIULIANO FALCO poeta e crtico italiano, radicado em Ballegia, organizador da exposio Arteinchiostro (1984), que reuniu quase meia centena dos mais importantes poetas ligados poesia visiva e outras vertentes da poesia experimental italiana. LETCIA OCHARN Poeta, artista grfica e crtica mexicana, membro do Ncleo Post-Arte, organizadora da Bienal Internacional de Poesia Visual y Alternativa do Mxico (1985-1987), autora de Srie Onomatopeya (edio da autora). MRCIO ALMEIDA nascido em 1947 na cidade de Oliveira (MG-Brasil). Poeta e crtico formado em Letras, alm de jornalista e publicitrio, iniciou suas atividades em 1964 quando fundou o grupo VIX, tendo, desde ento, participado de diversas exposies de poesia e de vanguarda, visual e experimental no Brasil e exterior. Autor de Lavrrio (1971), Previso de Haveres na Terra do Puka (Edio Lani, 1978) e Orwelhas Negras (xerotiragem de 1984), entre outros. Tem trabalhado com poemas-posters e poemisetas, desenvolvendo atividade terica sobre a produo da poesia visual. MIROLJUB TODOROVIC nasceu em Skopljie (Iugoslvia), em 1940. Poeta e terico, formado em Direito pela Universidade de Belgrado, iniciou sua produo em

1958, que se encontra reproduzida em revistas da Iugoslvia, Europa, EUA e Amrica do Sul. Fundou o movimento Signalista e atuou como editor da revista internacional Signal, vinculada ao movimento. Presente em diversas antologias e exposies da poesia visual em todo o mundo, publicou, entre outros, os livros planeta (1965), Signal (1970), Antologia da Poesia Signalista (1971) e Knockout (1984), alm de diversos poemas-objetos, posters e performances. PHILADELPHO MENEZES - nasceu na cidade de So Paulo, (Brasil), em 1960. Formado em direito pela USP, obteve o ttulo de mestre em Comunicao e Semitica pela PIC/SP. Organizou a mostra Poesia Intersignos (1985), tendo participado de exposies de poesia visual e livros de artista nos EUA, Canad, Blgica e Hungria, alm da 2 Bienal Internacional de Poesa Visual y Alternativa do Mxico. Tradutor de Fernando Pessoa: 35 Sonnets (ed. Arte Pau-Brasil, 1988). SERGIO CENA - nascido em 1948 na cidade de Torino, Itlia. Poeta, artista plstico e terico, inicia suas atividades nos anos 60, passando pela poesia concreta para chegar poesia fontica e visual. A partir de 1983 formula a idia da Poesia Metagramtica seguindo para o poema arqueolgico, cuja elaborao est em andamento. autor de Topogrammi (1973/75).

ABOUT THE AUTHORS OF THE TEXTS

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AMLIO PINHEIRO was Born in Santos (Brazil), in 1944. He is a graduate from the Faculty of Law of the UFRJ and has a doctors in Communication and Semiotics (PUC/SP), where is professor of Sociology of Communication, and Semiotics of Literature, besides professor of post-graduate course of UNIMEP-SP. He has been conducting his studies to relationships between poetic, politics and history in the ambit of Latin America. He published A Textura Obra/Realidade (Cortez/ Unimep,SP, 1983), Csar Vallejo: O Abalo Corpogrfico (Arte Pau-Brasil, SP, 1986), Tempo Solto (poetry edited by the author, 1972) e Cesar Vallejo A Dedo (translation, Arte Pau-Brasil, 1988). CSAR ESPINOSA was Born in Mexico City (Mexico), in 1939. He is a poet, critic and designer, author of Ideologia y Comunicacin Poltica (1981). He was founder-member of the Frente Mexicano de Trabajadores de la Cultura d of the La Perra Brava, El Colectivo, Colectivo-3 and Solidarte groups, and is member of Unin Mexicana de Artistas Correo besides coordinates the Ncleo Post-Arte, responsible for the organization of 1 and 2 Bienal Internacional de Poesia Visual y Experimental en Mexico and for publication

of the 5 catalogues of that exhibition. He compiled and organized the Signos Corrosivos anthology (Ediciones Literarios de Factor, 1987) texts on visual, concrete, experimental and alternative poetry. CLEMENTE PADN was born in 1939, in Lascano (Uruguay). Poet and theoretician, he is a founder-member of the Associacin Latinoamericana e del Caribe de ArtePostal, and has been partaking of more than 500 exhibits in Europe, USA and Latin America, including the I Bienal de Havana (Cuba, 1984, XVI Bienal Internacional de So Paulo and Bienal Internacional de Poesia Visual y Experimental en Mexico. Author of Los Horizontes Abiertos (poetry Ed. Los Huevos de Plata, 1968), Poemas Visuales (Ed. Ovum, 1969), Signografias y Textos (Ed Ovum, 1968) and Action Works (Edited by the author in 1981), among others. FERNANDO AGUIAR was Born in Lisboa (Portugal), in 1956. He is graduate from the Design of Communication by the Escola Superior de Belas Artes de Lisboa. He has participated in more than 70 collective and individual exhibits in Europe, USA and Latin America. He coordinated the itinerant exhibition Poemografias, which joined the most outstanding

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poets from the portuguese visual poetry. He organised the 1 Festival Internacional de Poesia Viva in Figueira da Foz, and the Poesia Viva exhibit in the Museu Nacional de Arte Moderna de Portugal. Author of Poemas + ou hist() ricos (Edited by the author in 1974) and O Dedo (Edited by the author, 1981), among others, acting also with the performatic-poetry. GIULIANO FALCO poet and critic, lives in Vallegia (Italy). Organized the Arteinchiostro (1984) exhibition, which gathered almost half a century of the most important poets linked to poesia visiva and other trends of the Italian experimental poetry. LETCIA OCHARN Mexican poet, graphic artist and critic, member of the Nucleo Post-Arte, which organized the Bienal Internacional de Poesia Visual y Experimental en Mexico, authoress of Onomatopeya series. MRCIO ALMEIDA was born in 1947, in Oliveiras (Brazil). Poet and critic, graduate from Literature, journalist and advertising man, he began his activities in 1964, when he founded the VIX group. Since then, he has participated in several exhibits of avant-garde, visual and experimental poetry in Brazil and abroad. Author of Lavrrio (poetry 1971), Previso de Haveres na Terra do Puka (Ed. Lany, 1978), working with posters-poems and poemshirts and developing a theoretical activity on visual poetry production. MIROLJUB TODOROVIC - was born Skoplje (Yugoslavia) in 1940. Theoretician and poet, graduate from the Faculty of Law of Belgrado he began his work in 1958 which is reproduced in many reviews from Europe, USA and South America. He founded the Signalist movement and edited the Signal, international review linked to that movement.

He published, among others, the books: Planet (1965), Signal (1970). Anthology of Signalist Poetry (1971) and Knock-out (1984) as wellas object-poems, posters, performances and manifests. PHILADELPHO MENEZES was born in So Paulo (Brazil), in 1960. Graduate from the Faculty of Law of USP, he obtained the masters degree in Communication and Semiotics (PUC/SP). Organized the Intersign Poetry exhibition (1985). He translated Fernando Pessoa 35 Sonnets (Ed. Arte Pau-Brasil), (1988) and participated in visual poetry and artists book exhibitions in USA, Canada, Belgium and Hungary, besides II Bienal Internacional de Poesia Visual y Experimental en Mexico (1987). SERGIO CENA was born in Torino (Italy), in 1948. Poet, plastic artists and theoretician, he began his activities in the sixties, including concrete poetry, to reach the phonetic and visual poetry. Since 1983, he has been formulating the idea of Metagrammatic Poetry. He is author of Topogrammi (1973).

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PARTICIPANTES

ARGLIA Rachid Koraichi ARGENTINA Edgardo Antonio Vigo / Tana Vigo Liliana Grinberg AUSTRLIA Dennis Mizzi Peter Murphy Thalia USTRIA Brigitte Gauss Marc Mer Martin Krist

BLGICA Benon Danny Van Eechaute Geral Alice Bonne Angi Guy Bleus Guy Schraenen Luc Fierens Metallic Avau Tania BRASIL Ada Maria Cavalieri Preito Almandrade Alonso Alvarez Ana Aly Antonio Lizrraga Carlos Alberto Moreira Daniel Santiago Elosio Paulo dos Reis

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Eugnio Bucci Falves Silva Fernando Aruta Floriano Martins Florivaldo Menezes Franklin Valverde Fred Maia Gerty Saru Gilberto Jos Jorge Gil Nuno Vaz Hugo Mund Jr. Hugo Pontes Joaquim Branco Julio Mendona Laerte Ferreira Lourdes Gabrielli Luiz Sergio Modesto Marcelo Tpia Marcio Almeida Maria de Lourdes Rabello Villares Maynand Sobral Neide Dias de S Oswald Guimares Carvalho Patt Raider Paulo Bruscky Paulo Klein Pedro Xisto Philadelpho Menezes Roberto Keppler Rubens Brosso Sebastio Nunes

Tarcisio Silva Taus Leal / Sos Parma Vagner Dante Veloni Valnei Andrade Villari Herrmann Wilton Azevedo Wlademir Dias-Pino CANAD Doug Barron Ismail Jam Jack Davis John C. Leonard Liliane Busby Lise Melhorn-Boe Lobster T. Earwax Mike Duquette Sandra Platt Sarah Jackson CHILE Csar Olhagaray / Estella Olhagararay Guillermo Deisler Manuel Escobar CORIA DO SUL Kum Nam Baik CUBA Pedro Juan Gutierrez

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DINAMARCA Mogens Otto Nielsen Steen Krarup ESCCIA Jayne Taylor ESPANHA Antoni Mir Antonio L. Bouza Bartolom Ferrando Francisco Peralto Gustavo Vega J.M. de la Pezuela Javier Darias Jordi Valls Juan Carlos Aberasturi Juan Jos Espinosa Vargas Xavier Canals Xoan Anleo ESTADOS UNIDOS Althea Dodson Tanner Bern Porter Buz Blurr Carlo Pittore Carol Stetser Clare Charles Forster Desmond Mclean Effie Mihopoulos

Gregg Zimmer Harry Polkinhorn Helen Levin James Johnson Janet Janet John M. Bennett John Pyros Judy Malloy Karl Kempton King Lehman Leavenworth Jackson Leo Morrissey Liz Was Loris Essary Lou Anne Greenwald / William W. Radawec Miekal And Nancy Blair Patrickt Private World Rebecca Haines Reid Wood Richard C. S.J.Leon Scott Helmes Sheila Holtz Shmuel Sonya Rapoport Stephen Perkins Terezinka Pereira Xexoxial Editions

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FRANA Alain Robinet Christian Bressol Christian Dautriche Ioan Bunus Michel Collet Michel Corfou Paul Nagy GRCIA Michael Mitras Sofia Martinou HOLANDA Cor Reyn Ever Arts Korneliusz Francke Pier Van Dijk Rod Summers U.G.Stikker HUNGRIA Adam Sim Andrs Petcz Andrs Szlvik Bla Kelnyi Bla Pap Endre Szksori Jozsef Bir Lajos Solomsi Robert Swieryewicz

Rudolf Takcs INGLATERRA Barry Edgar Pilcher John Furnival Keith Bates Mark Pawson Natalie DArbeloff Paula Claire Robin Crozier Stephen Mumberson IRAQUE Mohamed S. Saggar ISRAEL Allan Schwartz ITLIA Adriano Bonari Alberto Vitacchio Antonio Picardi Arnaldo Esposto Arrigo Lora-Totino Bellini Lancillotto Carla Augusta Cella Carla Bertola Carmine Lubrano Christopher Pisk E. Oliva Emilio Morandi

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Enzo Minarelli Fabrizio Ferrari Fernanda Fedi Gabriela Beretta Gaetano Colonna Giacinto Formentini Giacomo Bergamini Gian Ruggero Manzoni Gino Gini Giorgio Nelva Giovanni Fontana Giovanni Strada Giuliano Falco Giuseppe Denti Guglielmo Achile Cavellini Guido Capuano Irina Horsia Gianasso Luisella Carretta /Eligio Caldern Marcello Chiuchiolo Marcello Diotallevi Marco Sbizzera Maria Pia Fanna Roncoroni Marisa da Riz Matteo DAmbrosio Michele Perfetti Mirella Bentivoglio Natale Cuciniello Nicola Frangione Oronzo Liuzzi Peppe Rosamilia

Piermario Ciani Rino de Michele Ruggero Maggi Salvatore Anelli Salvatore de Rosa Sarenco Sebastiano Ciliberto Sergio Cena Sever Rossi Vittore Baroni William Xerra IUGOSLVIA Andrej Tisma Antal Szraz Balint Szombathy Dobrica Kamperelic Filimir Ivan Jelincic Merlin Jaroslav Supek Josef Kltik Katalin Ladik Marijan Cekolj Miroljuv Todorovic Nenad Bogdanovic Ratomir Masic Slavko Matkovic Tatomir Toroman Zviko Seratlic

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JAPO Michio Kambayashi Ryojiro Yamanaka Shoji Yoshizawa Teruyuki Tsubouchi Tomiichi Takata Yutaka Akiya / Mari Imai MXICO Alfredo Mejia Alvarez Portugal Csar Espinosa Claudia Catelli Esther Bohoslavsky Felipe Ehrenberg Guillermina Rugerio Guillermo Villegas Jesus Romeo Gadamez Jorge Bosano Jorge Lescano L. Edmund R. Laura Elenes/Teresa Guarneros Letcia Ocharn Lourdes Sanchez Lucero Rojas Luis Trama Pablo Espinosa Raul Tovar Roberto Lopes Moreno

PANAM Jos Arrocha V. Rodrigo Jan Ruben Contreras PERU Patrcia Veja Boschiazzo POLNIA Aleksander Pieniek Brbara Koskowska Fredo Ojda Grazyna Borowick Krzysztof Zelechowski Pawel Petasz Piotr Rypson Robert Rupocnski Tomasz Schulz Zbigniew Makarewicz PORTUGAL Ablio Jos Santos Ana Hatherly Antero de Alda Antonio Barros Csar Figueiredo E.M. de Melo e Castro Fernando Aguiar Silvestre Pestana

REPBLICA DEMOCRATICA ALEM Anette Groschopp Birger Jesch Josef W. Huber Jrgen Schberl Karla Sachse Manfred Martin Michael Groschopp Petra Grund Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt Stephen Jacob Ulrich Tarlatt REPBLICA FEDERAL DA ALEMANHA Aloys Ohlmann Bernd Lbach-Hinweiser Bernd Philippi Franz-Josef Weber Gza Perneczky Graf Haufen Hannes Clerico Hans Alvesen Henning Mittendorf Jane Barczyk Jurgen O. Olbrich Karl Riha Klaus Groh Michael Glasmeier Roland Schefferski Sal-Gerd Beyer Sylvia Herrmann

ROMNIA Amalia Perjovschi Anca Constantin Andrei Oisteanu Dan Mihltianu Dan Perjovschi Gaina-Gerendi Anik Gaina-Gerendi Dorel Marilena Preda Sanc Marin Domitrescu Miha Alexandru Mircea Stanescu Mirela Isil Miron Agafitei Radu Igazsg Stela Lie Valery Oisteanu SUCIA Peter Ahlberg SUA Do Badao Eugen Gomringer Janos Urban TCHECOSLOVQUIA Helena Hubkov Igor Sebestk J.H.Kocman Jan Wagner

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Jaroslav Moravek Jir Hla Jir Kocandrle Jir Valoch Josef Sekyra Jzsef Juhsz Karel Sevcik-Prax Martin Klimes Milan Mestrik Miroslav Klivar Otto Mszaros Ptr Sevcik Radam Parmova Rudolf Pavel Svatopluk Kral Vojtech Matusinec URSS Ilmar Kruusame Rea Nikonova Serge Segay URUGUAI Acosta Bentos Clemente Padn Jorge Caraballo N. N. Argaaraz Ruben Tani VENEZUELA Andres Athilano Sonia Gicherman

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Ficha Tcnica I Mostra Internacional de Poesia Visual de So Paulo

Diviso de Difuso Cultural Diretor / Ruy Rubio Rocha Assistente / Vanda Jungers Teixeira Equipe Tcnica de Exposies e Publicaes Supervisora / Luiza Ruberti Montagem da Exposio Alpio Braga Duarte Simes Elaine Maria de Alencar Cavalcanti Heleny Luiz Castino Julia DAmico de Almeida Serra Renata Casseb Sandoval Silvia Campos Acayaba Silvia Shimada Borges Simone Paganelli Sebastio de Souza Gabriel de Almeida Logotipo / Criao Ana Aly Projeto Grfico Ana Aly Bia Vargas do Amaral Yvonne Saru Coordenao Grfica Arlenice Juliani de Oliveira Composio Grfica Maurcio da Silva Medeiros Reviso Luzia Bonifcio Arte Final Marcos E. Souza B. Carvalhosa Paulo Tadeu Beserra Zelinda Maria Gandolfi Impresso / Laboratrio Grfico CCSP Arthur Pasotto Tiuragem / 2.000 exemplares Papel couch 90 grs. Edio / 1988

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APOIO CULTURAL

jornal da tarde
COLABORAO - Conselho Britnico Martin Fryer - Consulado Geral da Alemanha Ocidental Teodore Heldman - Consulado Geral da Sua / Fundao Pr-Helvetia Beat Heuss - Istituto Italiano di Cultura Gianni Angiolillo ngelo Rodofe Manenti - Julio Abe Wakahara - Programa de Ps-Graduo em Comunicao e Semitica da PUC-SP - Unin Nacional de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba (UNEAC) AGRADECIMENTOS - Arte Pau Brasil Livraria e Editora - Elizabeth Gaia - Heloisa Buarque de Almeida - Luiz Sergio Modesto - Maria Amelia de Carvalho - Ncleo Post-Arte do Mxico