ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses concrete poetry as a literary form exploring the relationship between words, images, and sound. By locating its roots in modernist avant-gardes and, indirectly, even further in the past, it provides a historical lineage of the form’s problematisation of the materiality of writing and its explorations of various typographic practices that often spill out of the confines of the printed page. The discussion addresses ways in which concrete poetry problematises many of the traditional regulations concerning reading and writing, including the role of language or of the audience. Finally, the examples provided illustrate how the affinity between concrete poetry and artistic practices acts against the routinised standardisation of language.
