Pattern poetry

Pattern poetry -- also referred to as "concrete poetry" or "size poetry" -- is poetry in which the typographical arrangement of words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the conventional elements of the poem, such as meaning of words, rhythm, rhyme and so on.

It is also known as "visual poetry", a term that has evolved to have distinct meaning of its own, but which shares the distinction of being poetry in which the visual elements are as important as the text.

George Herbert's "Easter Wings", was printed in 1633 on two facing pages (one stanza per page), sideways, so that the lines would call to mind birds flying up with outstretched wings.

Easter Wings by George Herbert (1633)

In 1956 an international exhibition of concrete poetry was shown in São Paulo, Brazil, by the group Noigandres (Augusto and Haroldo de Campos, Décio Pignatari and Ronaldo Azeredo) with the poets Ferreira Gullar and Wlademir Dias Pino. Two years later, a Brazilian concrete poetry manifesto was published. Its principal tenet is that using words as part of a specifically visual work allows for the words themselves to become part of the poetry, rather than just unseen vehicles for ideas. The original manifesto states:

The Following Text Is Quoted:

Concrete poetry begins by assuming a total responsibility before language: accepting the premise of the historical idiom as the indispensable nucleus of communication, it refuses to absorb words as mere indifferent vehicles, without life, without personality without history — taboo-tombs in which convention insists on burying the idea.