L.2013.6.12: Calligrammes: poèmes de la paix et de la guerre

Guillaume Apollinaire was one of the most influential modernist poets of the twentieth century as well as a perceptive art critic. Published shortly after Apollinaire's death, Calligrammes: Poems of Peace and War is a seminal work in the development of visual poetry. Apollinaire arranged the text of his poems to form images, linking typography and layout with meaning. As in Stéphane Mallarmé's A Throw of the Dice, the page becomes a canvas for experimentation and for the possibility of multiple, non-linear readings. His poem "Lettre-Océan," part of which is on view here, celebrates the theme of worldwide communication. The phrase "Jeunes filles à Chapultepec (Young girls at Chapultepec)" evokes a caption on a postcard (perhaps from his brother Albert's 1913 trip to Mexico), while the spiral format suggests radio waves or the shape of a Gramophone record.

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