Visuality and sound in the poems of Noigandres

Abstract

This essay consists of a critical study of Concrete Poetry, an experimental poetic movement developed starting from the Fifties on a global scale. The analytical section focuses in particular on the poetic production of the Brazilian Grupo Noigandres - founded in 1952 in Sao Paulo by the Campos brothers and Decio Pignatari - in order to re-evaluate the essential role of its auditory dimension. The importance of sound in Noigandres’ concrete poetry has too often been diminished by critics concerned exclusively with its graphic-visual aspect. My aim is to highlight that listening to the oral performances recorded starting from the Sixties brings out new possible meanings and interpretations completely unavailable in the written score. This study accounts for the verbivocovisual nature of Brazilian concrete poetry, focusing on its complex inter-semiotic nature created by a dynamic interaction between the verbal, the visual and the auditory dimensions of the words.