Text by Silje Ree, photos by Andrew Bibee
--- Launched on October 26, 2024 at Just Another Agency, Nakameguro
Left to right: Smog Lee Shun, Zoria Petkoska K., Takahiro Sawamura
Just around the corner from Meguro river, up two flights of stairs, through a mysteriously dim corridor and past a piano, a large white space overflowed with visual poetry. A line was already forming outside the exhibition space as the artists hung their final pieces. Eager visitors ready to mingle and discuss the blurring lines between poetry and visual art.
The exhibitors of the night are published in the latest ToPoJo volume, Visual///Visionary Poetry, including the cover artist duo Lin Syoki and Soléne Ballesta with Lin’s over 5-meter calligraphy piece hanging from the ceiling. Other exhibitors were Smog Lee Shun, Takahiro Sawamura, Herman Bartelen, Yarita Misako, Silje Ree, Jes Kalled, Marcellus Nealy, Ana Jovanovska, Eric Selland, Simon Kalajdjiev and Zoria Petkoska, the volume’s lead editor and exhibition curator.
Starting from top left: Simon Kalajdjiev and Eric Selland, Takahiro Sawamura, Silje Ree with her work and one work by Marcellus Nealy in the back, Simon Kalajdjiev and Zoria Petkoska K., Ana Jovanovska, Yarita Misako.
Just like the volume, the exhibition too displayed a range in styles. Takahiro Sawamura’s black and white visual poetry, created in Excel, displayed immense dedication as each carefully shaded square created striking patterns and shapes. In the corner Simon Kalajdjiev’s distinctive glitch art brought a neon color pop to the gallery.
ToPoJo founders Jeffery Johnson and Barbara Summerhawk kicked off the reading portion of the night with mystical crow sighting poems and Barbara’s succinct cheeky poem responses to famous men. Then Silje Ree was revealed to be the newest addition to the ToPoJo team and she performed a multilingual poem blending English, Norwegian and Japanese. She was followed by Smog Lee Shun who captured the room’s attention and performed his two visual poems from the journal in a reading that he admitted was his first attempt at transmorphing visual poetry into sound poetry.
Starting from top left: Jeffrey Johnson, Barbara Summerhawk, Silje Ree, Smog Lee Shun, Herman Bartelen.
Next, the brilliant Yarita Misako, one of the most experienced and active visual poets in Japan, recreated her poetry performances that are a homage to poet Niikuni Seichi. She started with a paper decked out with tiny bells, creating the sounds of rain by rhythmically and almost shamanically shaking the bells and tearing the 雨 (ame) character apart. Her beautiful performance was followed by Herman Bartelen who performed sound poetry accompanied by a guitarist. He rounded up the first set with a Dada-esque dance and sound performance.
Yarita Misako
During the break, attendees were grabbing drinks from the dark red-curtained bar and used the time to meet the poets and talk about their work.
Part two was kicked off by the volume's editor in chief and MC for the night, Zoria. She pulled us into the cyberpunk universe by reading from the “DYSTOKYO” series of poems from an upcoming book with artist Simon Kalajdjiev. Then, Greg Snazz electrified the room with an irreverent poem shaped like a CV and a job-hunting LinkedIn post. Florence Ng had flown in from Hong Kong and she performed a poem in both English and Cantonese.
Left to right: Greg Snazz, Florence Ng, Miki Sakamoto, Yuuri Miki, Ken Kawabata.
Then, reigning KOTOBA Slam Japan champion Miki Sakamoto showed us what the competition is all about. His mesmerizing performance in Japanese transcended languages as Miki’s enthusiasm and energy lit up the room. Yuri Miki, chairwoman of KOTOBA Slam Japan, followed with a strong performance and made us all wish that we too, memorized our poems so effortlessly.
Closing the night, Ken Kawabata a.k.a Robot Bastard set up a punky rhythm to serve as the backdrop of reading from Jennifer Lynch’s The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer while tearing the pages apart.
The night could only be described as a success as a diverse range of poets came together to share a taster of what visual poetry can be. And although visual poems are often more seen than read, the night proved that the longer you look at a visual poem the more readings the poem reveals to the viewer. This was a night abundant with poetry, a night we didn’t want to end, and this Visual///Visionary Poetry volume of ToPoJo is a book you will want to read over and over again.
Left to right: lead editor Zoria Petkoska K., Ana Jovanovska, Silje Ree.
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