Poema visual, 1997

Graphic work (editions), 41.2 x 56.2 x 4 cm

I began to make visual poetry out of a need to cross the limits of language and enter a less codified, more universal field. I don’t underestimate the literary code, but words get worn out. We should establish a new link between the visual and the semantic.

How would you explain visual poetry to a non-initiated public?

Nowadays it is experimental poetry par excellence. I always say that it is neither drawing nor painting, but a means of communication. I do it in the same frame of mind as I do literary poetry, but changing the code.

What are your precedents?

The earliest precedents of visual poetry come from the time when man stopped walking on all fours.

But without going that far, some authors in Catalonia followed the fashion of European ‘isms’.

Are those ‘isms’ still valid?

This business of avant-gardism is just another label, like Surrealist, neo-Surrealist, etc. There are no avant-gardists; rear-guardists, maybe. There is no advanced art, there is only retarded art. The poet must live in the present, travel on the train of his time and be sympathetic to other travellers, but with the windows wide-open. There are too many poets with nothing to say. Some people go to Paris by plane and when they write they travel in a palanquin. They don’t understand how some of us can write in a plane, so they label us. I don’t believe in the avant-garde.

Busquets i Grabulosa, Lluís: ‘Joan Brossa, contemplador actiu de les coses’, Plomes catalanes contemporànies. Barcelona: Grup Promotor / Edicions del Mall, pp.

Technical details

Original title:
Poema visual
Registration number:
Brossa, Joan
Date created:
Date acquired:
MACBA Collection. MACBA Consortium
Object type:
Graphic work (editions)
Silkscreen on paper
41.2 x 56.2 x 4 cm (height x width x depth)
Edition number:
70/99. Edició de 99 exemplars numerats i signats. Editat per l'Ajuntament de Barcelona i impressió a càrrec de l'Escola Massana, Barcelona.
© Fundació Joan Brossa, VEGAP, Barcelona
It has accessibility resources:




By presenting a story of a victim of violence in Colombia, I am calling on the memory of pain which all human beings have, here or anywhere else in the world.
Doris Salcedo