A Selection of Plastic Poems from VOU MAGAZINE
About Plastic Poetry:
Although Kitasono had begun experimenting with photography in earnest in the 1940s and 1950s, his initial work was in the tradition of surrealist photographers like Man Ray, or his own close friend, VOU-member Yamamoto Kansuke. Photographs such as The Disappearance of Honoré Subrac, though its subject was based on literary-sources, did not mix writing and photography. By the mid 1960s, however, perhaps as a result of having pushed his post-war minimalist and experimental work as far as it could go, Kitasono felt that experimental writing had reached a limit, and proposed the way forward was to abandon language altogether. At close to the same time theorists like Marshall McLuhan were announcing the demise of written culture amid the maelstrom of media images, Kitasono proposed a rejection of line, stanza, and often even the word itself, announcing the arrival of a poetry built entirely of images. He called this form “Plastic Poetry,” penning the manifesto below, and producing hundreds of “plastic poems,” alongside several other members of VOU who adopted his photographic form and vocabulary.
A Note on Plastic Poetry by Kitasono Katué
from VOU 104 (Feb./Mar. 1966), p.23
Poetry started with the quill and should come to an end with the ball-point pen. Presently it seems that poetry has reached a fork leading either towards ruin or greater potential; the direction will entirely depend on what kind of tool modern poets will use instead of ball-point pens to express themselves.
The camera is fit to be used expressively by poets. The camera can create a lovely poem even from trifling objects.
Words are the most uncertain symbols devised by human beings for communication. Further, Zen, philosophy and literature, etc., have driven them away to worthless rubbish.
It is a pack of nonsense that poems, the products of poets, are for antiquated mental constitutions of Zen and philosophy.
A plastic poem which needs neither lines nor stanzas is the figure of a poem itself; in other words, it is a "device for a poem" for which rhythm and meaning are not essential factors.
A flow of experimental poetry that originated from the sources of futurism, dadaism and cubism has left small ponds of concrete poems here and there, but they will dry up sooner or later.
Poets: You should not expect to win general applause for your being the most skilled craftsmen of words. Such an applause will never be brought to you, however long you may wait for it.
I will create poetry through the viewfinder of my camera, out of pieces of paper scraps, boards, glasses, etc. This Is the birth of new poetry.*
click to see plastic poem spreads from VOU
click to enlarge Kitasono’s plastic poems from VOU
More plastic poetry and VOU photography on this site and on the web:
Disappearance of Honoré Subrac, Kitasono’s proto-plastic poem (here)
Study of Man by Man, one of Kitasono’s two publication of plastic poetry in stand alone books (here)
Four Portraits of a Poet (here)
Catalog of Kitasono’s Plastic Poetry from a show at the RISD Museum (here)
A selection of plastic poetry at Karl Young’s Light and Shadow Anthology (here)
VOU Visual Poetry edited by Taylor Mignon and Karl Young at Isobar Press (here)
Japanese Visual Poetry 1684-2023 (including by VOU members) edited by Taylor Mignon (here)
+ plus more in the additional resources page