"Pilot Plan for Concrete Poetry" - Augusto de Campos, Décio Pignatari, Haroldo de Campos

(published in Noigandres, #4, 1958, Sao Paulo, Brazil)

concrete poetry: product of a critical evolution of forms.
closing off the historical cycle of verse (formal-rhythmic unity), concrete poetry begins by taking into account graphic space as a structural agent. qualified space: spatio-temporal structure, in place of merely remporistico-linear development; thence the importance of the idea of the ideogram, from its specific sense (fenollosa/pound) of a method of composition based on direct juxtaposition--analogical, not logico- discursive--of elements. "It is necessary that our intellect habituate itself to thinking synthetico-ideogrammatically in place of analytico-discursively" (apollinaire). eisenstein: ideogram and montage.
precursors: mallarmé ("un coup de dés," 1897): the first qualitative leap: "prismatic subdivisions of the idea": space ("whites") and typographic resources as substantive elements of composition. pound (the cantos ): ideogrammatic method. joyce (ulysses and finnegans wake): ideogram word: organic interpenetration of time and space.

cummings: atomization of words, typographic physiognomy: expressionist valorization of space. apollinaire (calligrammes ): as vision more than as realization. futurism, dadaism: contributions to the life of the problem. in brazil: oswald de andrade (1890-1954: "in compressions, minutes of poetry"). joao cabral de melo neto (n. 1920--the engineer and the psychology of anti-ode composition): direct language, functional economy and architecture of verse.more...

Found atLight & Dust Anthology of Poetry