An Introduction to Intermedia Poetry

by AB Kalinov
 Bracketing
 For the sake of this argument, I'm not going to discuss:
 Performance Poetry
 Digital Poetry

I'm going to discuss Intermedia Poetry on the visual-material axis:

 Calligraphy
 Typography
 Graphic Design
 Sculpture
 Installation
 Architecture
 Environment
 Negative Definition


Although it may overlap with these fields, Intermedia
Poetry is not:

Calligraphy

Typography
 Concrete Poetry

Visual Poetry
 Graphic Design

Book Art
 Conceptual Art

Fluxus
 Positive Definition

 Intermedia Poetry is the fusion of poetic forms (poetic text-forms)

into other mediums.
 The resulting object is neither poetry, nor sculpture (e.g.), but an
object that exists between the media.
 There must be “syntactic or grammatical fusion,” not merely
juxtaposition. “Reading” must be directly altered by (e.g.) the
properties of sculpture (material, scale, spatial arrangement, etc.).
 Reading, or reading/meaning-making, must still be possible and also
must not be simple (e.g. it cannot be a slogan or a one-trick piece).
 Example #1

Circulars, by John Cayley

This is Intermedia Poem (in addition to a
Visual Poem) because the visual-grammar
and linguistic-grammar are inextricable.

The poem is “about” the inextricability of
self and other (“man dreams butterfly
dreams man dreams...” etc.).

What makes this poem novel is that its form
enacts its content. Each circle is difficult to
pull away from; each circle is a “meaning-
trap” occupying consciousness for a brief
period of time.

Just as a sentence or word repeated over
and over looses definition, so too does the
boundary between self and other when
focused upon obsessively, which the poem
almost forces the reader to do.
 Example #2
 Diagram Poem, by Ian Finch.
 This is part of a much larger work. The diagram poem spanned three rooms of a gallery. Each part of the
poem was written in response to the artwork that occupied the same physical space.
 The poem takes unique advantage of the “grammar” of diagram to convey its message.
 e.g., consider the “*” at the center of the diagram. It is the direct overlap of “openings, exhalations and
murmurs.” Potentially, it represents the ineffable.
 The diagram form does the “*” greater justice than standard form because it conveys a sense of
“simultaneity” and “centrality” that cannot as adequately be represented by a line of text.
 Example #3

Sunbeam Poem, by Jiyeon Song

The poem, physically, is a shelter.
Perforations on the surface cause a
poem to form on the concrete floor.

You can see one part of the poem in
summer, another part in winter. Also,
you can only see certain lines during
certain times of the day.

The poem is a mediation on the birth of
life (summer) and its decay (winter).

For the reader to experience the poem,
he must pay special attention to the
actual passage of time and how this
intersects with the passage of time
represented within the text; this
simultaneously alters bodily perception
and conceptual perception of time.
What Are The Unique Advantages?

You are reading with your mind's ear.

You are reading with your mind's eye.
You are reading with your hands.
You are reading with your whole body.
Cross-Sensory Metaphors

 Also, and importantly, Intermedia Poetry

Gives one the ability to experiment with
cross-sensory metaphor.
 Fallow, from Born Magazine.*
 A cross sensory metaphor has two tenors,
each in two different senses (the image of
“crows” and the word “fog”) and two
vehicles, also in two different senses:
 crows as thick as fog, fog which surrounds the
house like a flock of crows.
 However, differently from standard text,
each part of the metaphor is perceived with
relative simultaneity.

*Electronic Example, but it need not be.

 The Intermedia Poetry Journal

www.intermediapoetry.blogspot.com

Intermedia Poetry publishes new work and
provides critical commentary on the field.

Additionally, the site contains a list of resources:
galleries that accept this type of work, other
journals that publish it, databases, a list of
intermedia poets, etc.

Ideally, the website will be a “first stop” or hub for
anyone interested in this genre.