It is a non-verbal medium that can handle expression and communication beyond the limitations of the word and beyond the semiologic arbitrariness that restrict it. It is the exploration of a new poetic dimension made possible through visual signs, with or without the help of words.
2 - Who were and/or are your sources of inspiration, your models (either poets or artistic movements) in this artistic medium?
Having observed concrete poetry since the 1950s, I felt that it had not transcended the boundaries of verbal language. I admired the poems "Solida" (Solid) and "A Ave" (The Bird) by Wlademir Dias Pino, but felt that they still used the word as a guide for their reading. The year was 1962 and I was anxiously seeking a means of non-verbal expression, something more radical. I found a way through visuality. I began recontextualizing advertisements to provide a visual reading of what they left unsaid. Then, I produced newspaper collages within the non-verbal structures of comic strips. Since then, I have become aware that poetry does not lie in the sign aspect but in the process of constructing the poem, in the semiotic process. At that time, other poets in Brazil – in Rio, Rio Grande do Norte, Minas Gerais and Brasília - had also realized this, so we founded the Poem/Process movement in 1967.
3 - Why did you choose to create, or why do you enjoy creating, Visual Poetry as one of your artistic expressions?
The fact is that I like to express myself through media that can communicate inside and outside of language. In addition to verbal poems, which I have been writing since 1958, in 1962 I began producing visual poems; gustative poems that attempt to establish poetics for the palate; auditory poems using the mouth and phonological distortions, in an attempt to resize verbal language around the unsaid; collective corporeal poems, in which the participants‚ bodies act as information in the construction of a sign-spectacle. Also, together with Neide Dias de Sá, I have produced film poems in which the visual becomes complex, incorporating montage and light. In summation, what really motivates me is studying new processes of expression/communication/knowledge.
4 - When did you first adopt Visual Poetry as a mode of expression?
In 1962, together with other forms of expression: performances, films, spectacles, palate, etc.
