Designed Words

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Abstract

If the historical vanguards have brought literature closer to the other arts, concrete poetry has dialogued intensely with design. The purpose of this article is to show why the concrete poetry movement, which had simultaneous exponents in several countries, presented unique characteristics in Brazil. This objective will be achieved through the amplification of some of the international readings regarding concrete Brazilian poetry. In our study, we will elucidate the particularities of the Brazilian context that drove the aesthetic research of concretism. In the 1950s, the euphoria over the creation of Brasilia from a master plan (called Plano Piloto) highlighted the importance of architecture and design in the idea of building the future. This prompted a small group of poets to challenge the linearity of verses by experimenting with typography, word spatialization, and the use of shapes and colors to bring text closer to design. Our article will show that concrete poets’ bold poetic proposals would only become more understandable with the emergence of digital media and aesthetic research around the digital literature.