SNEAK PEEK: Concrete Poetry

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Aram Saroyan, "lighght," 1965/1989

silkscreen, edition of 150, signed and numbered, 29.5” x 26.5” (courtesy Victoria Arts Council)

A Victoria exhibition that explores the intersection between visual art and poetry includes what's billed as “the most expensive poem ever published.”

Say what? 

Turns out that’s a reference to American poet Aram Saroyan’s lighght, a 1965 poem that consists of just one misspelled word. 

Written when Saroyan, son of Pulitzer prize-winning playwright William, was just 22, it was first published in The Chicago Review, and then selected by editor George Plimpton for the second volume of The American Literary Anthology. Each author in the anthology was awarded $750 by the National Endowment for the Arts.

“The Review kept $250, and Saroyan kept the rest,” Ian Daly wrote in a 2007 article for the Poetry Foundation. “All of which seems reasonable enough – that is, unless you judge the poem’s worth on a strictly cost-per-word basis – which is exactly what Congress did."

Who knows if lighght really is the “most expensive” poem ever? Although such claims come with the risk of an embarrassing deflation, Saroyan did write about the ensuing political brouhaha for Mother Jones in a 1981 article titled The Most Expensive Word in History.

He also published a limited edition silkscreen print of the poem as a fundraiser for the Paris Review, edited by Plimpton until his death in 2003. One of those 150 prints, on loan from a private collector, is included in a group exhibition at the Victoria Arts Council's main gallery from Sept. 4 to Oct. 24. The show, concrete is porous, features work by 28 poets, including notable Canadians bpNichol and bill bissett. It is the anchor for Stanzas, which includes exhibitions, readings and talks at arts organizations in Victoria.

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Jordan Abel, excerpt from "NISHGA," 2021

McClelland & Stewart (courtesy of the author and the Victoria Arts Council)

“To bring together 50 artists experimenting with writing, language, literature and form has been a dream of mine,” says Kegan McFadden, director of the Victoria Arts Council,

“As an experimental genre, concrete poetry, and the artists who embraced and pushed this form over the past 60 years in Canada, asks us to look again at how we see and interpret the world around us, how we understand something as fundamental as communication.”

bpNichol, excerpt from "First Screening," 1984, originally published on floppy disc, updated as digital transfer (courtesy the bpNichol estate and the Victoria Arts Council)

Concrete poetry generally conveys meaning through visual means, using patterns and typographical devices. 

concrete is porous also includes work from West Coasters Michael Morris, Jordan Abel, winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize, and Christine Walde, who works with lyrics from English rock band Joy Division’s 1995 song, Love Will Tear Us Apart. 

For a full rundown on events, including a remote reading by bill bissett on Oct. 22 and a curatorial round table on Oct. 24, go here. ■ 

PS: Worried you missed something? See previous Galleries West stories here or sign up for our free biweekly newsletter.