ABOUT POEM ATLAS
Poem Atlas is an exhibition platform and occasional publisher of books and object poems. It was formed in 2019 to connect individuals to new and established visual poets that toy with form in interesting ways. Our platform aims to showcase the best of object and experimental poetry in the UK and beyond, focussing on the work of poets who explore the performative aspect of tangible poems, and merge poetry and visual art to create unique visual-textual and interactive objects.
We have borrowed our name from the
hononymous Titan in Greek Mythology who was condemned to stand at the edge of the world and hold the entire sky in his arms until the end of time. A bit like the Titan Atlas, the poet has the potential to be the beholder of extraordinary things, such as
object poems, that can attribute for some of the most exciting forms in contemporary poetry.
Interested to contribute your work in one of our online exhibitions? Please follow this link for our submissions page.
“A bit like Titan Atlas, the poet can be the beholder of extraordinary things”
What is an object poem?
An appetite for curious poetic objects urged us to create a platform for the innovative field of object poetry – a unique strand of visual poetry that is lesser known to the wider public. An object poem, to us, is a three-dimensional poem with material and formal qualities that merges poetry with visual arts. This visual-textual object explores the creative possibilities inherent in this form and the necessity of such narratives, all while engaging with new ways to create interactive and shared participatory experiences. In the past, object poetry as a term, has been used by some to describe page-based poems written about objects, however we want to broaden this notion as we believe that the term also best describes the emerging form of the tangible poem. Throughout the years, object poems have also been referred to as concrete, standing poems, or just visual poems.
We occasionally publish object poems here.
Exhibitors and performers include Sascha Akhtar, Theodoros Chiotis, Steven J Fowler, Alexis Fedorjaczenko, Derek Beaulieu, Kimberly Campanello, Susie Campbell, E.J Coates, Claire Collison, Madelaine Culver, Paul Hawkins, Jade Cuttle, Storm Greenwood, James Knight, Simon Tyrrell, Caroline Harris, L. Kiew, Chris Kerr, Stephen Emmerson, Briony Hughes, Martina O'Shea, Michal Kamil Piotrowski, Maggs Vibo, Nadira Clare Wallace, Silje Ree, Simona Nastac, Maria Wigley, Konstantinos Papacharalampos, Nic Stringer and many more.