It has been a month since I started taking a creative writing class at the British Council. The modules cover various aspects of creative writing that include short stories, flash fiction, and also different forms of poetry.
While I have tried my hand at writing a few poems and Haikus, I don’t consider myself capable of writing poetry, except for a few rhyming lines I may have penned here and there.
Nevertheless, I was quite intrigued by a relatively newer form of poetry I was introduced to, called Visual Poetry.
Literary theorists have identified visual poetry as a development of concrete poetry but with the characteristics of intermedia in which non-representational language and visual elements predominate.
Academic Willard Bohn prefers to categorise the whole gamut of literary and artistic experiment in this area since the late 19th century under the label of Visual Poetry and has done so in a number of books since 1986. From his reductionist point of view, “Visual poetry can be defined as poetry that is meant to be seen – poetry that presupposes a viewer as well as a reader”.
As an optional exercise, we were given a few themes and asked to create a visual poem on any one of them.
The theme I picked was ‘A mountain peak’ and my visual poem looks like this:
(If you can’t read my uneven handwriting, you can read it below:)
Profit and Loss
By Ashima Jain
He runs across the valley
And drops into a gorge,
Struggles to climb some hills,
Wondering how much more.
Then he sees a mountain,
Its peak – the place to be.
If only he can reach that height,
Of his shackles, he’d be free
What do you think of this? Do you see the theme in this graph? Let me know by sharing your feedback 🙂
Any writers reading this – Have you seen or written any visual poetry. I would love to see it. Do share in the comments below.
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Picture Source: aquamarineflavours.wordpress.com
Aquamarine Flavours 
This was a discovery! I Didn’t know about Visual Poetry and am intrigued to try it.
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It is so fun. Just pick up a theme and get creative 🙂
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This is an interesting concept. Must try it out… Thanks for introducing me to this form of writing!
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It is so much more creative than the standard form of poetry, right? 🙂
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‘ve never came across this style of poetry. Would definitely love to write a visual poetry.
I found your poem match with the graph to a good extent. Keep writing more of it. 🙂
https://www.rohankachalia.com/2017/09/the-pain-of-not-being-there/
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Thank you Rohan 🙂
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Poetry itself is like a forbidden fruit to me, now the visual poetry seems like a million steps ahead. I try hard to even understand a poem. Only few poems i can connect to which are lucid and simple. Though i understood the poem here which talks about profit and loss in a very creative manner, i did not quite get the dotted part in ur visual poetry, does that mean something here or hold an importance?
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Hi Keerthi, The poem is based on a mountain peak which is conveyed through a profit & loss graph. The dotted line is to show the subject viewing the mountain peak as an aspirational target from his current spot.
Thank you taking the time to read and analyse my attempt at this new form of writing. I truly appreciate it. 🙂
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Ohh i got the idea of subject aiming for it but missed out on it in visual representation! Thanks for pointing me out in that direction 🙂
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You’re welcome!
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Thank Ashima, I had never heard of this form. It’s very intriguing. I am keen to read more in this form. Do share other works you have created in visual poetry (P.S. I can never do poetry but I would like to try my hand at this)
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Gayatri, this was my first attempt and I haven’t tried more yet (other pressing issues), but you should research it online. That will give you a good idea of how to go about it 🙂
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