A Slip of the History of Visual Poetry in Progress

The vispoetic sequence "totems" by Satu Kaikkonen is now available at the webzine Peep/Show edited by Lynn Behrendt and Anne Gorrick, and it is a part of an issue focused on international visual poetry that is curated by me.

I once said that Satu Kaikkonen included the entire history of visual poetry within her oeuvre. I said this because it was essentially true, because Satu had been creating visual poetry for about 18 months by then and had moved through all the major methods of making visual poetry and done them just about in order--and had done this without knowing what that order was.

Satu is a marvel. She is hugely industrious (which is a common trait--some say a weakness--of visual poets), and she is monstrously imaginative. Her visual poems have taken shape in any way I can conceive of a visual poem of taking shape. She has created shaped poems (for example), pwoermds (at the periphery of visual poetry), asemic writing, asemic comics, object poems, and much much more. If we wanted the world rich enough to justify living upon it, we would insist that Satu's only job be to produce her art.

So, after that bit of sideshow barking, hie yourself to Peep/Show to take a look at what Satu, one of the great visual poets, and one of the greatest Finland has ever produced, has made for you this time. And now Satu has progressed enough that she is not showing you history. She is showing you the future.

ecr. l'inf.