On Vicente Huidobro 's visual poetry

Abstract

In this article I study Vicente Huidobro´s visual poetry from the standpoint of the poet's own theoretical texts, in particular his schema of the three phases and three aspects of art. To this end, I undertake a close reading of three calligrams composed by Huidobro in his early years ("Triángulo armónico '  [Harmonic triangle], "Fresco nipón " [Japanese Fresco], "Capilla aldeana " [Village Chapel], as well as his visual poem "Paysage " [Landscape], composed somewhat later in French. The poet's experiments with form, marked by intelligence more than by sentiment, eventually led to the development of his epoch-making Creationist poetics