Portfolio: Spatial Poetry
Introduction by Timothy Cohrs
SPATIAL POETRY is a term I have coined to describe my attempts at wedding time-bound, two-dimensional poetry to a more plastic involvement with space. Its roots lie in my own fascination with the poetics of the late Charles Olson, and with the emphasis on presentation in Beat Poetry. SPATIAL POETRY also shares many ideas with the Happenings movement of the early ’60s, for in both the audience per se is abolished, and replaced instead by a group of willing or unwilling accomplices. . . .
The most ambitious SPATIAL POEM to date occurred at Cornell University and involved six readers (including poets Albert Goldbarth and Thomas Johnson), a very steep street cordoned off by the Ithaca City Police, many photographers, one newspaper reporter, and a plexiglas object on wheels. The object was rolled from reader to reader so that, had it not disintegrated on the rough pavement, the poem would have been completed orally as the street was traversed physically. However, the spectacle of the situation and the various municipal offices involved in obtaining permission were actually more crucial to the ’life’ of this SPATIAL POEM, than were the words recited.