Horizons: The Poetics and Theory of Intermedia
Author: Dick Higgins
Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press (1983)
Written for the lay reader as well as for academic literary theorists, this book bridges the gulf between the artistic avant-garde in music, visual arts, and experimental literature and the general public. Higgins delves into multiple areas, but here is an example of one kind of poem he works with:
those pieces
that move like this
those pieces
i say
are snowflakes
i say
those pieces
that move like this
those pieces
Along with many other artists—John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jackson Mac Low come to mind—Dick Higgins has investigated and invented a variety of genres and forms, working especially in intermedia, the fusion of two or more discrete media. His poetics travel some distance from the poetry of the past. Here he uses the fusion of the “receiver’s” and the artist’s horizons, their knowledge, feelings, experiences, and imaginings to provide a vivid account of artistic experimentation over the last thirty years.