Celebrating women making visual poetry

We will publish Judith: Women Making Visual Poetry, a 250-page, full-colour book featuring visual poetry from 36 women in 21 countries, a foreword by Johanna Drucker, and essays on digital visual poetry and the future of visual poetry by Fiona Becket, on women in asemic writing by Natalie Ferris, and on feminist practice with Letraset, the ephemeral and fragility by Kate Siklosi. The book will also feature an excerpt from a roundtable interview of 13 women artists who work with language and craft. Finally, we will include a list of more than 1100 women currently making visual poetry. The anthology is edited by Amanda Earl.

The following creators contribute visual poetry to Judith:

Firyal Al-Adhamy
Rosaire Appel
Erica Baum
Jessica Bebenek
Mez Breeze
Kimberly Campanello
Iris Colomb
Susan Connolly
Judith Copithorne
Kate Daudy
Paula Damm
Lenora de Barros
Johanna Drucker
Amanda Earl
CC Elian
Cinzia Farina
Mara Patricia Hernandez
Tasneem F. Inam
Effie Jessop
Satu Kaikkonen
Dona Mayoora
Kerri Pullo
Viviane Rombaldi Seppey
Astra Papachristodoulu
Mado Reznik
Karenjit Sandhu
Petra Schulze-Wollgast
Ines Seidel
Kate Siklosi
Lina Stern
Stephanie Strickland
Hiromi Suzuki
Ankie van Dijk
Seet van Hout
Terri Witek
Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt
Audra Wolowiec

The term ‘visual poetry’ within the book is a global term used for all work that integrates elements of language with another medium or engages with the graphical elements of text and mark making.

Front cover of Judith: Women Making Visual Poetry

We invited 12 women to contribute their work to the book and to provide the names of other women artists and visual poets who have inspired their work, acted as mentors, collaborators, and influences. We then invited the women named by the initial 12 to contribute work to the book and name women who have inspired or influenced their own work. In this way, the book acts as a continuum, connecting present creators of visual poetry to those of the past and inspiring women now and in the future to make visual poems.

For example, asemic writer Rosaire Appel named Viviane Rombaldi Seppey as an inspiration. I hadn’t heard of Viviane before, an artist who works with maps, phonebooks, books, photographs, and collected objects as source materials used to describe the elusive meanings of places and her relation to them. She cuts, glues, folds, knits, paints, and weaves in order to intertwine physical, cultural and personal territories.

Viviane Rombaldi Seppey, The World Isn't Flat

Viviane in turn talked about the work of Rosalie Gascoigne, a New Zealand/Australian artist whose artworks ‘hold part of words, characters from road panels, the material is cut, assembled and organized in grids pattern where visual poetry merges with the materiality of a place.’

Contributor Kimberly Campanello illustrates the vital and affirming connections made by women in her statement in the book:

‘In the summer of 2019, something remarkable happened in Leeds: Poetry by Design. There, I met two London-based poets, Iris Colomb and Sascha Akhtar. Colomb gave a paper on her work which is at-once highly performative and inherently textual. She finds incredible ways to ‘deliver’ textuality – on ping pong balls, on strips of plastic in a bathtub. If she reads from a book, it is with her body suspended from the ceiling in shibari bondage.

In the evening, Akhtar gave a powerful and genuinely witchy reading from her tarot card poems that demonstrated so clearly how the physical interaction of a reader with language can transform it, and vice versa.

Seeing these two varied approaches to visual poetics in the ‘flesh’ made a significant impact on my retrospective understanding of my work’s aims and context. I think it is vital that poets encounter diverse practices and have conversations about such differences, which exactly is what the Leeds symposium engendered and what this essential book will do. The fact that in my view the most exciting (visual) poets working today are largely women points to the end (I hope) of any need for special pleading. We are running the show.’

Statements such as these, the visual poetry and the inclusion of influences, discoveries and inspirations will help to make the book serve as a field guide to visual poetry for current and future women.

Getting to know the editor

I’m Amanda Earl, a Canadian writer, editor, publisher and visual poet. I’m working with Joakim Norling of Timglaset Editions to publish Judith: Women Making Visual Poetry. I’ve been the managing editor of Bywords.ca, a literary site and magazine since 2003, and the fallen angel of AngelHousePress since 2007, publishing chapbooks and two online magazines. In this capacity, I’ve published writing and visual poetry by creators from all over the world. I made a map of women and gender nonconforming visual poets and I have crowdsourced lists of visual poetry publishers, editors and curators. My practice for several years has been to try to support the work of women, 2SLGBTQ, BIPOC and D/deaf and disabled writers and artists by learning as much as I can about their work and amplifying their voices. Community-building is essential to me. It is a never-ending labour of love.

I’ve been making visual poetry since the mid aughts. My life’s work is to translate every verse, chapter and book of the Bible into visual poetry. My visual poetry has been published in 15 chapbooks, several anthologies and numerous sites. In 2018, Timglaset Editions published, The Vispo Bible: Revelation, a full-colour 28-page work.

Amanda Earl, The Vispo Bible: Revelation

Addressing gender imbalance

I’ve been told more than once by male publishers that few women make visual poetry, yet I see a lot of women visual poets on social media, sharing their work, and in the art world, there are many women artists working with language elements. There is clearly a gap between formal publication and sharing informally on social media, as well as a gap between anthologized visual poetry and the work that is exhibited on gallery walls.

The low representation of women in canonical 20th century concrete and visual poetry anthologies is well-known, but what is perhaps less known is that anthologies that have published visual poetry in this century also suffer from gender imbalance.

There is a domino effect when women are erased from canons. Scholars who have access to research only about men will write articles and books on their work alone. This helps create the impression that the only important and interesting work is done by men.

Connecting the past, present and future

The book is named after Judith Copithorne, a Canadian visual poet who has been active since the 1960s and deserves greater recognition and acknowledgement. My own work has been influenced and inspired by Judith’s visual poetry.

Judith Copithorne, 9.11.6--surd-14

In early 2019, I asked Joakim Norling of Timglaset Editions whether he would be interested in publishing an anthology of women making visual poetry, a dream of mine for several years. Timglaset Editions has earned a reputation for its exquisite design and its focus on visual poetry, including work by women. I knew it was a good choice for the book.

We made a list of all the women making visual poetry that we knew of through our own publication of them and that of others. The initial list amounted to about 100 women. From that list, we chose 12 that represented different styles of work from asemic writing to collage to digital vispo and typewriter poems. We also tried to select from as wide range of geographical and ethnicities as we could.

One of the things I wanted to do was to prove that there were in fact, a lot of women making visual poetry. My inspiration was Mirella Bentivoglio, an Italian concrete poet, artist and performer, who when confronted with the lack of female representation promoted and exhibited the works of women in 27 exhibits throughout the world, and created a network of women artists and visual poets, ensuring that women’s work would be taken seriously in the Italian art world and beyond.

Amanda Earl, Io: Homage to Mirella Bentivoglio, 2021.

We contacted editors, publishers, curators, and fellow visual poets who gave us additional names. This has truly been the work of a community over two years. We looked at a lot of work online and in anthologies. It became clear that in addition to what was typically considered to be visual poetry, there was also art that used language and elements of text as primary material. Not being part of the art world, I hadn’t heard of most of the artists that were named by our sources. In addition, Karl Kempton, an American visual poet and editor, was expanding my idea of visual poetry with the names he suggested but also with his book, A History of Visual Text Art, which contains over 500 pages and goes from ancient cave paintings to modern work, including Arabic calligraphy. It was frustrating to see work that hasn’t been anthologized in Western visual poetry books. We thought it was important to include it. We ended up with a list of over 1100 women making visual poetry.

Firyal al-Adhami

On schedule

Our plan is to finish design and layout of the book by the end of April, to send out advance copies to writers for back of the book descriptions or ‘blurbs’ and to have the book printed by the end of May. We have engaged the help of a proofreader who is going through the work and ensuring consistency. We will then give the proofs to our contributors and make any changes.

The book will be 252 pages, full colour print, 190 x 230 mm, softcover with 100 mm flaps, sewn. We plan to publish a first edition of 300 copies. For this fundraising campaign we need 4500 Euros to make the project come through.

A passion project

I believe in solidarity and I believe there is strength in numbers.

I wanted this book to include as many women currently making visual poetry as possible to show all women that their work has value and to show them they are not alone.

I believe this book is more needed than ever. I don’t believe the book will stop the erasure of women in a patriarchal world, but I do believe it will help to support and promote women making visual poetry and to create spaces in which they can thrive.

Glowing Reviews

‘Judith: Women Making Visual Poetry is a stunningly edited anthology by Amanda Earl: if you have no idea of what visual poetry is at the outset you will by the time you close this book, with its dynamic selection of twenty three poets' works, each of which speaks to an exuberance and delight in language, as a tactile and material practice. I loved every page of it, rippling with energy and a sense of a contemporary moment and movement. This is a book that will touch your heart and make you wonder where it has been all along.’ 
Bronac Ferran

‘Judith: Women Making Visual Poetry finally gathers female visual poets from all corners of the world in a beautiful anthology dedicated to highlighting the excellence and abundance of visual poetry made by women. Judith: Women Making Visual Poetry is the anthology I wish I had growing up.’
Silje Ree, Creative Director, Mellom Press

'JUDITH is an incredibly important – and long overdue - addition to our understanding of Concrete Poetry. Essays, reflections, and statements join samples of exceptional work of concrete poetry by women from around the world. This volume is indispensable. Every page exposes a new vocabulary, a new perspective, and a new history. You gotta have this book. You gotta learn.'
Derek Beaulieu

‘Judith is a fantastic and welcome insight into visual poetry from women around the globe. Its varied pages are a delight to behold, and the work revels in the materiality of language. Dynamic visuals are interspersed with critical essays, thoughtful reflections, and insightful statements. With each re-reading you will find something new.’ 
Rachel Smith

'From bold, chunky Letrasets, to delicate 3D poems literally hanging by a thread, everything is represented in this gorgeous full-colour anthology. JUDITH is a truly stunning and exciting celebration of the full breadth and depth of visual poetry created by women.' 
Clara Daneri, Penteract Press

'Judith is a woman and a book. As a woman, Judith appears when she might have been invisible or ignored, and with her, she brings many women, as text-images, image-texts, weaving in and across and through time, the warp and the weft of language configurations that occur under various names. As a book, Judith may be read as a text and as an image, or as a text-image, appearing as a history and a possibility, however partial. It is a generous location, inclusive and extensive, necessary and inviting.' 
Sharon Kivland

'We really need to thank Amanda Earl for compiling a spectacular anthology about women and visual poetry. Judith: Woman Making Visual Poetry is a must have book. Beautifully written and visually represented, it expands our understanding and knowledge of visual poetry and the important, yet commonly overlooked role, women have played, and are still playing, in creating visual work. It is fascinating from so many aspects: historically, visually, as a record, and also for recognising women's innovation.'
Trini Decombe and Nikki Dudley, streetcake magazine.

'Judith: Women Making Visual Poetry is a necessary intervention into and resource against the monopositional cultural baggage which has collected around 'visual poetry'. Beautifully featuring a wide variety of visual writing techniques and traditions in which women are working, Judith not only shows us what visual poetry actually is, but gives us hope for what it could be.'
Ava Hofmann,  SPORAZINE
 

‘Judith is a collective masterwork of WOMEN WHO MAKE the most exciting visual poetry in our contemporary. It is an international, polyphonic love letter to the diverse and vibrant materiality of poetry, and a call to action with enough electricity to power our touch-starved digital lives.

Judith is a call to action with enough electricity to power a Hitachi. Witness this vibrant involution of poetry as material, as code, as sculpture, as dream, as cinema, as dissent... A who's who of women who are sculpting poetics as we know it. A must read/watch/see!’

Chloё Proctor, The Babel Tower Notice Board