NEW! Mark Young In The Continental Review

What is situated between reflection and reproduction? It is something like the space between sonority, visuality, textuality: a place of movement and transition, and specifically, that point of transition where difference stops being visible, and we move almost imperceptibly into the plane(s) of resemblance. Two heads cross, becoming one, or two birds' beaks cross, becoming leaves: language participates too in this continual, Ovidian metamorphosis, and thus gives the lie to Horace's taxonomy of stable parts.

This is by far, for me, one of the most coherent and also beautiful projects we've had the chance to feature at The Continental Review to date, a piece which achieves a stunning coherency between visuality, sonority and textuality, interweaving them into an integrated, if not thankfully seamless, fabric.

Not surprising either that this effort should come from Mark Young. The video features poems from Mark's Series Magrittes, read by Miia Toivio, with animation by Marko Niemi. As you'll see from that link just above, Mark's Series Magrittes, in its current state, is available from Moria as a fully downloadable e-book, which is a pretty excellent gratos Christmas gift.

So, do check out this extraordinary piece which announces the possibilities of a poetic medium for the new century.

Also, some updates on the idea of a specifically Visual and Video Poetics Prize. From Nico Vassilakis, via back-channel :

I recall ten or more years ago sending a manuscript of concrete poetry to be considered for some literary grant in town, a big place, and they actually called me and said, mr vassilakis, we only consider poetry...we dont know what grant you were applying for. i yelled at them that that was my submission to the poetry grant, and they said, im sorry mr vassilakis, we cannot accept this. please resubmit if youd like to be considered. etc.

there are no places i know of that attend to visual text.

And from Geof Huth's blog :

[Do] visual and video poetics need a prize of their own? I say, No. Let the form do what it may without the intrusive hand of a prize system. Let the obscurity of the form be its saving grace. Let visual poets be visual poets.

And also, do see the comments box to the previous post for K. Lorraine Graham's signalling of the apparently very valuable and interesting International Media Poetry Contest.

The times they are . . .