"Homage for Mary Ellen Solt" by Joel Lipman (Ohio, USA)
(December 2025) (Image courtesy of the artist)
Earlier this week I was excited to see visual poets Joel
Lipman and Cheryl Penn had both digitally published impressive homages to two
important figures in poetry, experimental literature, and visual poetry: Joel
created a piece for Mary Ellen Solt and Cheryl – always a fan of great European
poetry – produced an impressive work honoring Paul Celan.
Mary Ellen Solt (1920-2007) earned a master’s degree in literature from the University of Iowa. She became one of the most important leaders of the global concrete poetry movement of the 1960s, co-editing the influential and classic anthology Concrete Poetry: A Worldview (Indiana University Press 1968).
Learn more about Mary Ellen Solt, including Concrete Poetry: A Worldview at Ubu:
https://www.ubu.com/papers/solt/index.html
Solt’s concrete poetry collections, Flowers in Concrete and Marriage: A Code Poem, are contemporary classics. Among many other honors, she received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities to research William Carlos Williams.
"Amsel: for Celan" by Cheryl Penn (South Africa)
(December 2025) (Image courtesy of the artist)
Paul Celan (1920-1970) was a German-speaking Romanian who
became a French citizen in 1955. He survived a forced labor camp where he was
sent by the Nazis. In the ruins of Post-World War II Europe, Celan became globally
recognized for his literary and cultural innovations. Today, he is enjoying
revived interest among visual poets.
I am not at all surprised that Cheryl Penn chose Celan for the
powerful visual poem in this post. Cheryl’s work has always included text and
cryptic experiments with language and the borderland between word and image.
The invocation of Solt and Celan by Lipman and Penn allude to
a powerful and rich history in visual poetry and experimental writing that is
in need of further exploration.
- De Villo Sloan
December 18, 2025
Elbridge, New York, USA
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