INTRODUCTION TO UBUWEB: VISUAL POETRY
UBUWEB began as an online repository for concrete and visual poetry
scanned from aging anthologies and re-imagined as back-lit
transmissions from a potential future. As the archive has progressed,
the concentration on visual poetry has waned in favour of an
reconnoitering of diverse avant-gardes.
UBUWEB: VISUAL POETRY exposes little-seen exemplars of historical
praxis and models of contemporary insight to a wider audience. This
section includes anthologies, ephemeral publications, criticism and
sporadic journals dedicated to visual poetry. Due to the elusive and
ephemeral nature of concrete and visual poetry publications, there is
a perceived lack of innovation in the genre. Without exposure to
radical practice, artistic precedent and innovative models, concrete
poets too often fall back upon familiar tropes and unchallenging
forms.
UBUWEB: VISUAL POETRY is not presented under the rubric of historical
coverage or indexical completeness, but rather as a document of
isloate moments of what Haroldo de Campos argued was a “notion of
literature not as craftsmanship but […] as an industrial prcoess”
where the poem is a “prototype” rather than the “typical handiwork of
artistic artistry.”
— derek beaulieu, curator