Several events this month platform the spoken and written words in new combinations: An exhibition of Japanese and French "visual poetry" opens May 15; poetry marries improvisational live jazz and shakuhachi performance; and a book launch for an anthology of new writing offers readings, music and dance.
Visual poetry may claim antecedents in Egyptian hieroglyphs, but the genre took shape in modern times with the experimental works of the Dadaists and Futurists, the poet Stephane Mallarme and Brazil's Noigrandes Group of designer-poets led by the de Campos brothers.
By the mid-1950s, the genre had become an international movement, and Japan's earliest examples appeared in 1960. Published in the journals of the Association for the Study of Art and the VOU Club, these "vispoems" were the work of Katsue Kitazono, editor of the VOU journal, and Seiichi Niikuni.