Glitch Poems
The Glitch Poems are in the tradition of visual poetry. Each glitch poem contains, at its core, several traditional poems. These conventional poems are improperly mixed and conveyed with – some intentional, some random – visual symbols, numbers and letters. This inappropriate incorporation of visual and literary elements create a text that is poetic but also a site where noise and interference scramble the reliability of the traditional poetic text and its meanings. Furthermore each poem is printed numerous times creating surfaces that produce a density that denigrates the integrity and clarity of the stand-alone traditional poem. Each glitch poem – with its mixture of words, symbols and letters – creates a powerful graphic statement that at the same time hinders the typical act of reading by creating a seemingly illegible surface that sets up innumerable texts that appear as our eyes glance over the page combining words, phrases and graphic symbols into fortuitous new poems.
Rick Pieto is a visual poet and writer living in the Silver Spring, Maryland area. His visual poetry has been exhibited at Rhizome DC and Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, and published in Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, fields, Midway Journal, 805: Lit + Art and Minetta Review. His poetry has been published in The Big Windows Review and Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine. He received a PhD in media ecology from New York University and has taught at Georgetown University and the University of Baltimore.