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Beyond Words at Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Words are at the heart and soul of poetry. Whether summoned in hours of deep contemplation, snatched from momentary flashes of inspiration, or allowed to tumble out freely in the absence of conscious intervention, words combine to give a poem shape and substance: in the mind, the voice, on the page. From traditional lines of alexandrine verse to the latest experimental forms, they remain the essential element, carriers of sense, sound, cadence, meaning.

So what is poetry beyond words?

The works in this exhibition seek to challenge viewers to ask that question.

Beyond Words: Experimental Poetry & the Avant-Garde, an exhibit that delves into that question, is at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, 121 Wall Street, New Haven, through Sunday, Dec. 15.

The exhibit will include examples of lettrist hypergraphies, such as paintings that incorporate letters both as letters and as representational symbols, works that sometimes blast the written word to bits. Not even vowels and consonants are safe in Gil Wolman’s works (voice techniques called megapneumis), or those of François Dufrêne (sound poetry called cri-rythmes), or the recording sessions of Henri Chopin.

But in most cases words abound, giving shape and substance to nearly all the compositions of experimental poetry on display in this exhibit.

Just as words have always done in poetry?

Not quite.

Even when they seem to make up the entire poem, words are by no means the only (or often even the primary) compositional element. Typography, layout, color (of ink or paint), even the material supports on which these words appear (paper, canvas, wood, iron, magnetic tape, to name a few) all come into play.

But don’t such elements belong to words?

Aren’t they simply part of them, an incidental part at that, subordinate but necessary for words to take concrete physical form and hence be read or heard?

Well, no.

Typography, layout, ink, material supports may be necessary for words to appear on a page, but they can also be deployed for other purposes, even at cross purposes, striking out at words, challenging their sense, altering or entirely subverting their meaning. By taking them up as compositional elements in their own right, experimental poets and artists of the avant-garde ask us to explore possibilities for creative expression in the purely visual, aural, tactile qualities of physical media. They ask us to look beyond words

Beyond Words is organized by Kevin Repp, curator of European Modern Books & Manuscripts

For more information, visit beinecke.library.yale.edu/beyondwords.

“So I judge a poem’s importance, if it is obviously as well conceived as possible, if it is also the most perfect, but above all if it was capable of joining together man and poet, ... of becoming flesh and blood, movement and gesture, word and speech, if it knew beauty and started to sing, knew all the possibilities and contained them all (all that which in the end we call spirit) in order to be and remain, departed from out of chaos, the last writing. Only then is it a poem …”

Henri Chopin, 1960