Summer reading

by on
A History of Poetry Comics

Summer Reading Book Reviews

Poetry comics continue to be a way of illuminating thoughts, adding context to text (if that isn’t redundant), and helping the reader make that leap from what is said to what is possible. Here are three poet-artists I read this summer that continue to make things new.

Cover of Puddles by Tomas Cisternas (Bored Wolves, 2024) Puddles by Tomas Cisternas (Bored Wolves, 2024). Translated from the original Spanish, these comics by Tomas Cisternas perfectly illuminate his often spare text that focuses on nature, solitude and solace, and being human in the natural world. The work is black-and-white with a simplicity of line that matches the sentiment of the work (totally my sensibility).  If you don’t want to call them poetry comics then call them poetic comics.

Along with diary comics of walks, which are often multi-page, the single page comics are particularly poetic. In one panel he writes: “Throughout my life I have wasted time magnificently.” Indeed

Here’s one of my favorite comics from this collection (it was hard to pick just one) that speaks to the poetry in Cisternas’s work. He adeptly uses the last frame as a “silent” panel (i.e. a picture that doesn’t need words) that puncuates the poem perfectly.

From Puddles by Tomas Cisternas (Bored Wolves, 2024)

Shout out to Bored Wolves for the translation and making Cisternas work available in English. It’s a beautiful production. Check out the other works the Krakow-based press offers, many of which combine words and pictures.

Cover to Metamorphic Door by Carolyn Supinka (Buckman Publishing, 2024) Metamorphic Door by Carolyn Supinka (Buckman Publishing, 2024) Wild poetry comics are sandwiched between equally wild poems (some illuminated) in Metamorphic Door by Portland poet-artist Carolyn Supinka. In one poetry comic, she writes: “The question / of / who am I / if I’m not / constantly / creating / something.” It’s a question she keeps answering throughout the collection with both words and pictures.

The six poetry comics included here span from two to 10 pages of one-panel or two-panels each. Each panel is multi-layered, drawings of objects that morph intertwined and interrelated, and can disappear totally at times. The text too can’t be contained by the panel. Instead it hovers above, intertwines, and fills empty spaces as it spills down the page. (See AHOPC #12 to compare how bpNichol exploded the frame of the panel in his poetry comics.)

Here’s a representative page from Supinka’s “Earth Tide” that illustrates her style: 

Panel from poetry comic "Earth Tide" by Carolyn Supinka
From “Earth Tide” in Metamorphic Door by Carolyn Supinka (Buckman Publishing, 2024)

Her poetry is more experimental than it may first appear, which perfectly matches her illustrations/illuminations. There are poems that ignore the gutter and spill across the spread; and poems that are literary photo-negatives of each other. The Index is a work of art as well!

BTW I came across Supinka’s collection while browsing the poetry stacks at Powell’s City of Books on Burnside in downtown Portland. Browsing at Powell’s is one of my favorite things to do!

Cover of THE TEST #50 by Blaise Moritz (Urban Farm Print and Sound, 2023) THE TEST #50: In Prasie of Shogun Warriors by Blaise Moritz (Urban Farm Print and Sound, 2023)

East Toronto artist Blaise Moritz creates poetry comics that are engaging, explosive, and original. He has published two books of poetry (without pictures) in addition to his monthly comic book, THE TEST, and graphic novels, including his latest Bar Delicious (Conundrum Press, 2023). Call Moritz a poet-artist or an artist-poet — either way he smartly uses words and pictures to illuminate and expand context.

His piece “In Praise of Shogun Warriors” in THE TEST #50 (Urban Farm Print and Sound, 2023) features linked haiku stanzas (from 2015) that Moritz illustrated in 2023 with Gundam-inspired robots remembered from his childhood (including Shogun Warriors fan art he made when he was 8 or 9 years old). Japanese haiku (three lines of 5-7-5 syllables) aptly fit this subject matter; it’s perfectly played. Here’s a sample from the 16-page poetry comic:

Other examples of his poetry comics can be found online by following Moritz on Instagram. Some of his single-panel poetry comics are reminiscent of Kenneth Patchen’s picture poems. He also makes music as The New Birds of America (underscoring the poet-artist drive to build additional context for when we’re asked, “What does it mean?”)

Thanks to David Lasky for recommending Blaise and sharing his THE TEST comics with me.

Timeline: Current

Warning: This incomplete history maps my journey as a poet learning about comics and doesn’t follow a strict chronological order. 

by on

book reviews – notley, field guide, Damm, bp

End of summer means the end of summer reading! Here are some of the poetry comics (and books on poetry comics) I read this summer.

>Runes and Chords by Alice Notley (Archway Editions, 2023). Poet Alice Notley started posting these “poem/drawings” on Instagram in 2019 during the pandemic. As she writes in the introduction, “They seemed to portray my state of mind better than a selfie, they wasted more time than a selfie, and were generally fun.” Done in her own handwriting, her words are interlaced with pictures of masked faces, portraits, flowers, and doodles; and the lettering piles on top of each other, becomes crosswords, and/or change colors in each panel, sometimes obscuring the drawings and vice versa. They comment on current affairs both political and personal. Most importantly, they directly reveal what the artist is thinking in her own voice. Here’s one example:

From Runes and Chords by Alice Notley (Archway Editions, 2023)

>Field Guide to Graphic Literature edited by Kelcey Ervick and Tom Hart (Rose Metal Press, 2023). Wow! A book for instructors, students, and writers who are looking to create “graphic narratives, poetry comics, and literary collage.” Each of the 28 essays/lessons is by a poet/writer/artist working in a specific aspect of combining pictures and words; each comes with an example of their work; and each comes with an exercise to guide your own creation. In total, these comprise a great survey of current state of affairs. I couldn’t put it down! My favorite aspect of the book is the “Alternate Table of Contents by Form,” which makes it easy to navigate to the form you want to explore, such as “Poetry Comics & Comics Poetry.”

>The Stoneware Jug, by Stefan Lorenzutti and John Porcellino (Nieves, Bored Wolves, and Spit and a Half, 2022). Stefan Lorenzutti, poet and publisher (with Joanna Osiewicz-Lorenzutti) of Bored Wolves in Krakow and the Polish Highlands, provided the words. John Porcellino, poet and comics artist of King Cat fame, provided the drawings. The collaboration works on a number of levels. The haiku-esque poetry is perfectly illumninated by elegantly simple pictures in comic-book panels settings. This work encapsulates my sensibilities of poetry comics. (More on collaborations in a future post.) Get your copy now!

>Riot Comics & “I’m a Cop” No. 2 by Johnny Damm (2023). Johnny Damm continues his hybrid-comics-collages using found text with two new works this year. Riot Comics combines cut-up classic cops comics and Depression-era photos with quotes from those who participated or witnessed the Tompkins Square Park riot in 1988. “I’m a Cop” No. 2 directly quotes “actual statements of police union leaders.” Both resonate with current events.

By placing these “law and order” comics in the context of a real-world police, Riot Comics seeks to challenge the carceral logic that dominates the vast majority of U.S. comic books and to question if this medium might also serve as a space of abolitionist possibility.

Johnny Damm in Notes to Riot Comics

For more on Johnny Damm’s work, see AHOPC #9.

>Team Photograph by Lauren Haldeman (Sarabande Books, 2022). Graphic novelist/poet Lauren Haldeman interleaves poems between chapters of this graphic memoir and ghost story. While not fully integrated visually, the poems serve as a soundtrack to the narrative she’s telling in graphic novel format, providing context, depth and space for the story to unfold. Or perhaps it’s the other way around — the graphic novel provides context for the poems. Either way, this work made me realize there are different ways to think about the relationship between poetry and comics; a welcomed reminder to keep an eye on the overall.

>St. Art: The Visual Poetry of bpNichol curated by Gil McElroy (Confederation Centre Art Gallery and Museum, 2000). This catalog to an exhibit of bp Nichol‘s visual poetry features three insightful essays, his “mech sheet for pome objects,” and a detailed list of his works. Here are three insights I gleened from the essays and bp Nichol in his own words:

  1. My earliest visual poems I called “ideopomes” because I had read Fenellosa on the Chinese written character as a medium for poetry, because I was very interested in Chinese, Japanese, Haida & Kwakiutl poetic modes, & because I saw myself as consciously working with the ideogrammatic potential of the arabic alphabet … This interest in the ideogrammatic & (as I later saw) runic capacity of the alphabet, ran parallel to an interest in the comic strip & its narrative & syntactic convention. (bp Nichol)
  2. Within the realm of the literary arts, visual poetry, a poetic form with a history that arguably stretches back to at least 1700 B.C.E., truly came of age in the century with the work of the French poet (and first major theoretician of Cubism) Guillaume Apollinaire, his Dadaist contemporary, Tristan Tzara, and the Italian Futurist, F.T. Marinetti. (Gil McElroy)
  3. While painter Roy Lichtenstein moved into the comics frame to work at a kind of molecular level of technique, Nichol pushed out against the frame and other comic conventions to a more panoramic approach. The simply drawn, minimally detailed figures of the characters and scenes in Nichol’s comics contrast with the sophisticated play occurring with the panels themselves. (Paul Dutton)

Timeline: 2000, 2022, 2023

Warning: This incomplete history maps my journey as a poet learning about comics and doesn’t follow a strict chronological order.