How did you first come to visual
poetry? What is it about the form that resonates?
Visual poetry is just one of the many ways poetry is
expressed or conveyed by the author. I don’t like to make dichotomies or
excessive distinctions let’s say there is linear poetry, experimental or
research poetry, and visual poetry, but all three coexist and interact,
supporting one another.
When it comes to form, poetry can be seen as a
geometric point through which infinite lines pass, creating structures similar
to a hypertext that regenerates with each reading. We can talk about the theory
of a "third way" beyond pure research writing and the now-worn-out
lyricism.
I use Smart Art and industrial graphic languages to deconstruct and reconstruct phrases, creating a "spatial" poetry. The reader himself becomes the "builder" of the poem. I’ve been pursuing this kind of study and research for years. Outside of visual poetry, I also work as a visual artist, focusing on collage and photography.
How does a visual poem begin?
The foundation of every visual poem is the idea, the project and the architecture. I don’t believe there is a precise working method; sometimes, you build the space on a linear structure, and other times, the opposite happens.
Do you see your work as a single,
extended project, or a series of threads that occasionally weave together to
form something else?
That’s an important question. I firmly believe in the
idea of a project and the architecture of a complex work not a single
expression exhausted in a single page. My visual poetry works are born this
way.
“Sequenze per sbagliare il bersaglio” (Sequences to Miss the Target) from 2021 (in Italian) was my first major project. This year, in the fall, thanks to the American publishing house Wet Cement Press, “1” will be released a work I care deeply about, intertwining a poetic narrative on urban alienation with the "spatial" poetry I mentioned earlier.
How do you see your visual art and
visual poetry in conversation, if at all?
There is a happy intersection between visual art and visual poetry. Sometimes I think they’re the same thing. When I create non-poetic visual works, I adopt "serialism" in production: I always use the same subject (a young man with a surfboard, called Dudo) and present it in infinite variations, as if he were the protagonist of dreamlike events. Its reproduction in each collage leads to the loss of the original meaning and places the subject in one dimension alienating. Everything seems simple, but the character is placed in the crisis of our society: it is never the same, at most a cloning.
Have you a daily schedule by which
you work, or are you working to fit this in between other activities?
I absolutely don’t believe in the romantic idea of the poet’s "inspiration" 😊 behind every work there is study, observation, and a desire to design and explore something new and stimulating.
What are your favourite print or
online literary journals?
I read a lot of literary magazines, especially
American, Canadian, and British ones, where I often publish my works, without
neglecting those from the Asian sphere. Unfortunately, Italy is missing from
this scene there’s no international reach for many reasons I prefer not to go
into here.
I don’t want to make a list that would inevitably be incomplete, but of course, “talking about strawberries all of the time” remains a special place, as does “Swifts and Slows”, connected to Arteidolia in New York, my first visual art publications.
Who are some of the artists you have engaged with lately that most excite you?
Honestly, I’m an avid consumer of art and poetry I try to absorb as much as possible because there is always something to learn from everyone.
Lately, I’ve revisited the works of E.E. Cummings and John Giorno, but there
are many young artists in the underground scene that I love, I am thinking, for
example, of those contained in the anthology “Objects” published in the U.K. by Dunlin
press, not to mention a master like Adriano Spatola, who passed away a long
time ago and too soon.
Giulio R.M. Maffii: He was born in Florence (Italy). His studies are dedicated to poetry (linear-experimental-visual) and its diffusion. He has published in many international magazines also as a visual artist. He collaborates with “Bubamara Teatro” Theatre Company. He teaches at the University of Florence. He plays with photos and collages.
He has visual work in the thirteenth issue.