Invitation: 50 YEARS OF CONCRETE POETRY
From Clemente Padin

This invitation is directed not only to the great community of visual poets=
of the whole world but and above all to specialists and lovers of poetry. =
At the end of this year, 2006, we will celebrate 50 years of the birth of o=
ne of the most important tendencies of visual poetry of the world: we refer=
to Concrete Poetry.

In December, 1956, the historic Art Concrete expositions began in Brazil gi=
ving birth to one of the most important artistic movements in the world in =
the second half of the XX century. The participant poets in those expositio=
ns were: Decio Pignatari, Augusto and Haroldo de Campos, Ronaldo Azeredo, F=
erreira Gullar and Wlademir Dias-Pino. The first exposition took place in S=
an Pablo, from 4 to 18 December, in the Art Modern Museum (MAM) and the nex=
t one was inaugurated in Rio de Janeiro, in February 7, 1957, in the vestib=
ule of the Ministry of Education and Culture of Brazil.

Concrete Poetry arose, simultaneously, in Europe and in Latin American: in =
1952 Noigandres group was founded in Sao Paulo; in 1953 the manifesto "For =
Concrete Poetry" of Oyvind Falstrom appeared in Sweden and in 1953 "Const=
elaciones" of Eugen Gomringer, the Swiss-Bolivian poet, secretary of the Su=
perior School of the Form of Ulm, Switzerland, heiress of the German Bahaus=
, appears in Switzerland. Gomringer and Pignatari were the one who coined t=
he term Concrete Poetry in 1955.

In homage to these outstanding events we invite you to send us notes, comme=
ntary, bibliography, photos, poems or documents that remember those histori=
c moments to form a body of knowledge and works in relation to one of the l=
ast poetic movements we have known. Send material to Clemente Padin