New Concrete Poetry: "Collected" by Charlotte Jung (reviewed by De Villo Sloan) - minimalist concrete poetry
Essay/review - Collected: Concrete Poems by Charlotte Jung
Malmo, Sweden: Timglaset (2023)
124 pages, perfect bound, 7” X 8”
Review by De Villo Sloan
In preparing to write this essay on the minimalist poetry of Charlotte Jung, I have been greatly assisted by the publication of Collected: Concrete Poems by Charlotte Jung. This edition was released in 2023 by Timglaset, the acclaimed Swedish publisher of postavant lit.
Collected gathers the majority of Jung’s minimalist compositions to date, including the contents of entire chapbooks and longer sequences, among them C (2019), (SEED) (Timglaset 2020), Hole Being (No Press 2021), and RAPE (The Blasted Tree 2022), among others.
This substantial volume does much to establish Jung as an important, innovative minimalist poet of the 21st century. Readers of contemporary visual poetry, asemic writing and new poetic genres will want to have Collected in their libraries. According to her webpage as well as an informative interview in Train, Jung names Susan Howe, Agneta Eckell and Aram Saroyan as particularly important inspirations and influences.
Jung’s contemporary iteration of minimalist poetry involves exploring the dual nature of language – letter, word – as simultaneously both image and sign. Seldom does she go very far beneath the textual surface to fragment, disrupt and repurpose.
Thus, Jung’s Collected has little to offer in the way of asemics; however, exceptions are present. The CO2 section fragments and cuts-up words to create a powerful environmental protest poem.
Traditional minimal concrete poetry with its geometric precision and austere economy of signs is often considered an exercise in hyper-formalism and ultimately too restrictive for creativity. Pre-Jung, my own subjective view of poetic minimalism was that it exuded a problematic masculine terseness. Charlotte Jung’s contribution thus far is to bring a healthy organicism and pleasant liquidity to revitalize classic minimalism. She also expands the field of content to find vital new messages and meanings using classic tropes.
By utilizing the ideo-cultural stance of the avant garde, Charlotte Jung’s concrete poems address reproductive freedom, domestic violence, rape and gender identity. Her ideo-poetics have the passion, conviction and precision of legendary activist poet Clemente Padin.
In her self-reflective statements, Jung refers to “a feminist reclaiming of concrete poetry,” which I believe she has done eminently in Collected. By “feminizing” the masculine terrain of minimalist verse, Jung – and her individual talent should not be minimized in her achievements – opens this exciting genre to more women and new possibilities for freedom of expression among all poets and artists. I see Charlotte Jung as a writer making remarkable contributions.
- De Villo Sloan
November 5, 2024
Elbridge, New York, USA
De Villo Sloan is a concrete poet living in Upstate New York. He writes about postavant lit & art and is director of the Winifred & De Villo Sloan, Jr. Charitable Fund.
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