www.poembrut.com An ambitious new project, Poem Brut is an exploration of poetry and colour, handwriting, composition, abstraction, scribbling, and illustration, affirming the possibilities of the page, the pen, the pencil - in a computer age - generating over a dozen events, multiple exhibitions, workshops, conferences and publications. The first event will take place at Rich Mix on November 25th followed by an exhibition - Hard to Read - also at the Rich Mix, opening December 9th. 3am magazine, a partner in the project, is also running open call for new worksthat fit within the tradition. Further information on the project below.
Poem Brut aims to ask what is in the shape of a letter? What images do words recall? What is the meaning of colour in poetry and text upon the page? And white space? How does the situation of a poem change its meaning? Why is composition not a concept that applies to a medium that is innately visual? In literature, why has content overwhelmed context? Why has product dominated process? Poem Brut, in a playful, creative and accessible manner, aims to redress some of these concerns.
Poem Brut, conceptually, aims to not only support contemporary practitioners, but to illuminate an alternative history of modern poetry, while exploring how innovative methods of poetry are often utterly purposeful - often emerging from alternate experiences of language and consciousness in the world. In this way, Poem Brut aims to bridge a gap between poetry and art, and to support artists and poets who often have to navigate an unfortunate binary of outsider / insider.
Poem Brut will evidence the brilliance of poets working in underexplored traditions or whose work responds to their own alternative experience of consciousness, be that through neurological disorder, intellectual disability or mental health experience. It is a project which aims to share their methods and means, to create new works and bring light, primarily, to the inspiring potential of a poetry of colour, shape, composition, geometry, handwriting and material.
The project supposes that returning to the gestural and instinctual methods, often mistakenly associated with ‘high art / poetry’, can have an extraordinary effect on many individuals who are often ill at ease with formal learning of literature. In doing so, Poem Brut aims to create a narrative through historical poets who have explored this exciting territory, to show audiences and participants interested that they are part of a tradition.
Poem Brut will be an examination of words that are meant to make you squint, to battle for legibility, rather than you be able to pinch and extend your thumb and forefinger against the page to get a closer look. It will be a celebration of scribbling, crossings out, forgotten notes, strange scrawls - the odd interaction between paper and pen, and pencil, and the colours that randomly collide. It is a project about the page as a block, about geometry, about lines that sever meaning, about inarticulate shapes, about minimalism and collage. It is about making, gesturing towards the handmade, the amateur, the outside, liquid and wood, ugliness, toilet wall draughtsmanship and mess. www.poembrut.com