New Concrete Poetry: "Collected" by Charlotte Jung (reviewed by De Villo Sloan) - minimalist concrete poetry

Cover of Collected by Charlotte Jung (Sweden: Timglaset 2023) 

(Image courtesy of the artist)

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 21^st 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.

From ABCDE in Collected by Charlotte Jung (2023)

(Image courtesy of the artist)

To understand the concrete formalist components of Charlotte Jung’s work, a familiarity with poetic tropes established by Aram Saroyan is a significant aid: Like Saroyan, Jung also focuses on single letters and words. Occasionally larger linguistic structures emerge that appear on the page as works similar to sound poetry scores.

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.

From CO2 in Collected by Charlotte Jung (2023) 

(Image courtesy of the artist)

Aram Saroyan is frequently ranked one of the world’s premier minimalist poets, but the literati were not prepared to embrace him when he first shared his breakthroughs. Critics assigned him to the minimalism that took the visual arts by storm. Unfortunately, the result was marginalization in global poetry communities. Minimalist concrete territory is still largely unexplored but has great potential.

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.