8 May 2004. A bit of background on why I tend so vigorously to defend my definition of visual poetry (even after saying I'd stop doing so): in doing so, I am actually mostly defending my system of taxonomy--for almost aesthetic reasons. I perceive the visio-textual continuum as extending from pure illumagery, or visual art with no hint of the verbal or even textual in it, through visual literature by everyone's standards (because it has an obvious verbal element that is clearly aesthetically significant and an obvious illumagistic element that is also clearly aesthetically significant) to pure literature, or verbal art no one would say has an illumagistic element (although is has to be visible in order to be readable, a fact that causes some to claim all literature as visual literature). Granted the continuum as I--and just about everyone else, I imagine--perceive it, I am attracted to the idea of each of its three main divisions being more or less equal in width. My opponents, however, seem to want "visual poetry" to start near both extremes of the continuum by counting illumagery that anyone feels can be "read" in some way, or otherwise suggests textuality, even if it contains no overt textual elements, to be visual poetry, and literature which needs to be seen by anyone to be fully appreciated--because, for instance, spaces, or the absence of spaces, allegedly can't be indicated orally, even if it contains nothing overtly non-verbal. Result: a continuum that's 90 to 98 percent "visual poetry."