The Ear and the Eye: Visual Strategies of Avant-Garde Sound Poetry

Beata Śniecikowska

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Chapter 3 The Ear and the Eye: Visual Strategies of Avant-Garde Sound Poetry

In: A Hundred Years of Avant-Gardes

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Beata Śniecikowska

Beata Śniecikowska
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https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0099-5792

Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 55–80

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004730380_005

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Abstract

Numerous avant-garde sound poems created in different corners of Europe may be regarded as Gesamtkunstwerke utilising elements of different arts and affecting different human senses. The paper discusses three main visual strategies employed by avant-garde sound poets, including the connections between the analysed phono-visual arrangements and the practices of the visual artists of the time. The author begins with a description of compositions of highly untraditional phonostylistics and surprisingly conventional layout (‘transparent’ verse structures, regular typography). Analyses reveal significant sensory implications of such a notation provoking inter alia close semantic examination of the glossolalic works. The next section is devoted to the poems often described as scores for performers. It is claimed the identification of the works only (or mainly) as stage instruction manuals abstracts from the important aesthetic and ‘functional’ features of the printed poems. The last part of the article examines the entanglements of highly visual sound texts bursting the poetry verses, employing various visual devices, giving up linear notation. The author emphasises similarities in the spatial arrangements by the poets and the visual artists of the time. The last two groups of poems are considered examples of wordgraphy (the term clearly defining close verbo-visual connections).

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A Hundred Years of Avant-Gardes

The Literary Experiment in Poland and Beyond 1917-2017

Series: Avant-Garde Critical Studies Online, Volume: 46 and Avant-Garde Critical Studies, Volume: 46

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004730380

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 09 Jan 2026

Subjects
- Literature and Cultural Studies

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African Studies	Education	Media Studies
American Studies	History	Middle East and Islamic Studies
Ancient Near East and Egypt	Human Rights and Humanitarian Law	Musicology
Art History	International Law	Philosophy
Asian Studies	International Relations	Religious Studies
Biblical Studies	Jewish Studies	Slavic and Eurasian Studies
Biology	Languages and Linguistics	Social Sciences
Book History and Cartography	Life Sciences	Theology and World Christianity
Classical Studies	Literature and Cultural Studies

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Chapter 3 The Ear and the Eye: Visual Strategies of Avant-Garde Sound Poetry

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A Hundred Years of Avant-Gardes

The Literary Experiment in Poland and Beyond 1917-2017

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