Late Twentieth-Century Intermedia Poetry in the Americas

This chapter provides an overview of significant intermedia poetic activities taking place in the Americas during the late twentieth century. Borrowing from Dick Higgins’ proposals for “Some Poetry Intermedia,” it examines poetic practices that intersect with his categories of object, video, visual and concrete, action, sound, concept, and postal poetry. Each section discusses possibilities for defining the category at hand and explores examples corresponding to its understanding of intermedia poetry. Examples include work by practitioners including Brazil’s Noigandres group, the Cuban publishing collective Ediciones Vigía, Chilean poet/artist Cecilia Vicuña, Mexican artist Ulises Carrión, US poet N.H. Pritchard, and Brazilian artist Leonara de Barros, among others. The chapter ultimately suggests that the range of intermedia poetic examples identifiable at the end of the twentieth century speaks to the malleability of poetry during the era and to the generative effect of changes introduced to poetic form and language by prior waves of vanguard experimentation.