By Gabriel Foster
Graphic poetry (sometimes called visual poetry) is a form of poetry that combines both written and visual artistic elements to create a unique visual piece of poetry. For example, the poet or graphic designer can combine a style of poetry with a style of art, like let’s say a graphic novel style using panels and maybe some word balloons like I do occasionally. Another example would be using written words or typography in a layout of words and spacing to form an image (known as a calligram). The ultimate goal is to utilize typography and images into some kind of visual poetry that can be read.
Types of Graphic Poetry – A Quick Reference
Asemic Poetry – This type of poem reminds me more of abstract art, because it uses visual language without any meaning, symbols and shapes to form a wordless poem that ultimately is left up to the individual looking at the poem to subjectively decide on what it might be communicating to them, hence the same result as an abstract art piece.
Calligram Poetry – The poet arranges text to form a visual image, for example an image of a fish or cat. It is noteworthy to remember that all calligram poems are “concrete poems”, but not all concrete poems are calligrams.
Concrete Poetry – In this similar case, the poet visually arranges the texts to “increase the poem’s meaning”. Also, noteworthy! The shape of the poem is often an image related to its subject, for example a dog or a plant.
Digital Poetry – An electronic type of poetry that uses various types of digital effects like animation movements to bring the poem to life.
Graphic Poetry – My favorite! It uses images next to the poem, but more often combining both written poetry and image itself into a single work artistry of poem. Poetry comics are what this combined type is usually referred to, especially after using comic panels.
Haiga Poetry – Ahhh! It’s a type of poetry I like very much. The art form combines haiku with a painting to combine a single piece of graphic poetry to highlight the best of both art forms.
Typographic Landscape Poetry – This type of poem uses font sizes, styles and various placement depth and texture on a page. The end results are a visual landscape of words.
My Graphic Poem Examples
Per the above graphic poetry references, there are many styles that exist today, that many poets can and do pursue. If you look at my website’s category for “graphic poems”, you’ll notice that I’m going for an open book style of poetry telling. Meaning that the images and text that are fused together to create the graphic poem as a whole is in the style of an open book where one side of the page is pure text and the other is purely an image. All designed to create an open book feel.
Other pure graphic poetry examples in different styles are mostly found in my poetry gifts section, from poetic styles to poetry quote styles.
Video Graphic Poems
There are many styles and executions for poems in video form. One of the most popular styles is to have an image of the poet or image of the celebrity, voicing the text appearing on screen for the poem. The image remains static while the typography changes and introduces the next set of the poem.
Another popular style is to use static images, maybe a painting or series of paintings of different scenes while the text of the poem is shown on screen and updates into more text furthering the poem along with the image changes. The images may or may not be always relevant to the scene at hand. These types of videos are not slideshows but do incorporate some slideshow features.
In Conclusion
Any and all graphic poems should make it easy for the poetry reader to effortlessly follow along as intended. Other than asemic poetry, the visual experience should have a level of communication for the poetry reader to fully absorb the message.
GF Poetic Wisdom | Graphic Poetry paints a picture of stories that satisfy the heart, energizes the soul and sets the body moving to its own music. ~ Gabriel Foster
