Reading experiences: notes on the way(wardness) of the visual poetry (Apollinaire and Ana Hatherly)

Abstract

Starting from the hermeneutic assumption that every reading should be creative – formulated by the Portuguese poet Ana Hatherly in 1981 – this study presents some notes taken from the analytic canon, which directly or indirectly sees poetry as a text that needs to be read and interpreted. As such, the Caligrammes by Guillaume Apollinaire – a French visual-poetic material from the beginning of the 20th century – as well as the Portuguese poetographic text A reinvenção da leitura de Hartherly will not only be read, but also seen and shown. Thus, the task proposed here is to unveil not the legibility of the poetic text, but its visuality.