Visual poetry and syntax of writing

Abstract

In the present times, where visual procedures of spatialization and figuration in poetry have ceased to be novel and are already widely spread across a significant portion of contemporary production, there arises an urgent need to establish robust methodologies of analysis and an appropriate metalinguistic language for their exploration. When these procedures question reading through modes of page occupation, the scarcity of analyses that do not invoke the central assertion becomes noticeable: “the poem disrupts the linearity of the linguistic sign.” This article investigates the disruption of linearity through the lens of a “new syntax” or “spatial syntax”. Our approach is focused on the inherent syntax of written language, treated as an autonomous semiolinguistic system, and the poetic usage that can be derived from it. In this context, we introduce the concept of “metataxis of written language”, outlining rhetorical operations that influence the relationship between words on the page through the manipulation of linguistic and semiotic categories intrinsic to writing, such as direction, alignment, use of punctuation marks, variations in capitalization, among other aspects.