[John Isbell]

Here is why almost all work on the visual layout of a poem post-Apollinaire bores me:

https://www.google.com/search?q=apol...XWqDITJahhgqM:

My apologies for the long link. Googling Calligrammes will turn up a fair sample of what Apollinaire imagined and achieved. To my mind, it blows e.e. cummings, to start with, out of the water. cummings looks timid.

Cheers,
John

PS Apollinaire was a friend of Picasso's, as one might guess. He wrote the Calligrammes largely in the trenches and died early shortly after WW 1.