The kaleidoscope of visual poetry: New approaches to visual literacy

What are the possibilities for poetry? This paper introduces approaches to creating and teaching poetry through a critical survey of contemporary practitioners within the field. Analysis of ekphrastic traditions, comics and concrete poetry, artists books, graffiti poems, film, performance and interdisciplinary collaborations reveal new opportunities for poetic experimentation that help to meet the aims of the Australian Curriculum. This theoretical examination is exampled with visual poetry by Shin Yu Pai, Cecilia Vicu a, Ebon Heath, Tom Phillips and Australian practitioners such as Elena Knox, Chris Edwards and Michael Farrell. Also explored are experiments in poetry comics by Dino Buzzati, Kenneth Koch, Bianca Stone, Warren Craghead, Matt Madden and Sean Michael Wilson as well as examples of multimodal texts within The Red Room Company's projects. Exposure to this kaleidoscope of visual poetry encourages exploration of poetic possibilities, both creatively and critically, for teachers and students.