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21 January 2005: Today I came across (not for the first time) some visual poems by Jukka-Pekka Kervinen. They are nothing but typed words partially erased, in different sizes, colors, orientations, and arranged, sometimes, in different shapes. But that's enough to allow them to do all that any poetry has ever done. Here are two samples:
Consider the extent of the wonderful decisions granted a poet of these kinds of works besides what words to use: what color to use where, how much of a text-bit to leave legible, how to shape the text as a whole, etc., etc. This is the root of my bias against conventional poetry: it doesn't immediately (or ever, for that matter) dizzy me with the ways I could use its devices. That here it excites me both as poet and illumagist is a secondary huge virtue.
Go to Jukka's Non-Linerar Poetry to see many more of his "non-linear poems."
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