Constructing Meaning through Visual Form: John Ecko’s Concrete Poetry
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33806/ijaes1253Keywords:
concrete poetry, John Ecko, semiotics, structuralism, visual form, visual poetryAbstract
This paper examines the relationship between visual form and verbal meaning in John Ecko’s Signs of Life: A Book of Visual Poetry (2009) through the theoretical perspective of Structuralism and Semiotics. It analyses how typographic choices such as spacing, shape, and layout contribute to the interpretive process. In doing so, the study demonstrates how visual organization enriches the reader’s interpretive process. Through close textual and visual analysis of selected poems, this study reveals that the visual aspects of Ecko’s poetry are indispensable to interpretation, challenging interpretations that privilege the verbal dimension of the poems. This study contributes to scholarship on Concrete Poetry by showing that Ecko’s visual architecture is not merely decorative but essential to the construction of meaning and to guiding the reader’s interpretive process.
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